


The Smile Has Left Your Eyes

by San Antonio Rose (ramblin_rosie)



Category: Supernatural, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on LiveJournal, Dean Winchester Is Fae-Touched, Depression, Gen, Goopy W. D. Gaster, Parent W. D. Gaster, Protective Sans (Undertale), Sans (Undertale) Remembers Resets, Selectively Mute Frisk (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-23 05:15:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30050454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ramblin_rosie/pseuds/San%20Antonio%20Rose
Summary: A mountain full of fae suddenly gains a mine full of monsters, refugees from another reality. Six months later, a red-eyed child is on a killing spree in Ebott, Idaho. But when Garth dispatches the Winchesters to look into the matter, none of them expect the consequences of the hunt to reach the highest levels of Heaven itself. And the surprising friendships the brothers make along the way might be more vital than they seem.





	1. Prologue: Up the Rabbit Hole

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired, though at several removes, by Kaesa’s wonderful fic "Never a Lovely So Real" and prompted in part by the fact that the handful of SPN/Undertale fics I’ve found to date have not taken this particular angle of approach.
> 
>  **Full disclosure:** I haven’t played _Undertale_ , nor do I plan to. I’m far more interested in the story and the characters, about which I’ve learned a great deal from the fandom, than in the mechanics of the game. For that reason, I’m setting this story after a True Pacifist run but will leave most of what happened in the UT characters’ past to the reader’s imagination. Dialogue will most likely not match what’s said in the game, though, which is a deliberate choice; you’ll see why. Other deliberately AU details will be explained, or at least lampshaded, as the story progresses. The story is gen casefic. It will include UT fanon, particularly about Chara. Frisk is selectively mute. Because I can't change fonts here, the chief distinguisher of the skelebros' dialogue is that Papyrus speaks in all caps (unless he's whispering) and Sans speaks in all lower case. On the SPN side, I’ve had to fudge the timeline a bit, so it’s already somewhat AU from the start; but I’m leaving the Years That Weren’t as they are in canon for reasons that will become obvious shortly. **If any of that bothers you, please hit the Back button now.**
> 
> Finally, a couple of GMTA hat tips: to Rumon Gray, whose “Another Medium” includes a theory about the Underground similar to the one I present here, though it differs in significant respects; and to eternal blossoms, whose “Over and Over” includes an idea about Frisk’s final living arrangements that’s similar to what I show in later chapters. I had actually started writing this story before reading the relevant parts of those, but I wanted to be sure to acknowledge the similarities!

_August 8, 2012*_

Sans could scarcely let himself believe it. After all these years, all these Resets, the Barrier had fallen, and no one had died this time. Frisk had done the impossible. The monsters of the Underground were free at last.

That they would remain so was more than Sans could hope at the moment.

“Are you ready, my child?” Asgore asked quietly.

Frisk nodded and, with shoulders squared and head held high, led the way to the surface. The other monsters who’d been present at Frisk’s triumph fell in behind the kid, Asgore first, then Alphys and Undyne, then Toriel beside Sans and Papyrus. Sans dreaded a Reset with every step, but none came. And finally, for the first time in centuries, the monsters walked out of the Underground and tasted fresh air and witnessed the sun setting over the town of Ebott.

(Sans thought he might have seen this before, but he couldn’t be certain. The timelines were starting to run together now.)

When the sun disappeared behind the mountains beyond Ebott (had they been there before?), Asgore turned to Frisk and gently laid a massive paw on the kid’s shoulder. “Frisk, we’ll need an ambassador to the human world. Would you fill that role for us?”

Frisk looked up at the monsters’ king, considering, and then nodded.

“NYEH-HEH-HEH!” exclaimed Papyrus. “WE GET TO MEET MORE HUMANS! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, AM GOING TO—”

“HALT!” someone else interrupted, and in the blink of an eye socket, the monsters were surrounded by... well, they _looked_ human, but they smelled like strange magic to Sans, and their clothes and weapons weren’t modern. They were tall, too, taller than Papyrus and almost as tall as Undyne.

Sans was... pretty sure this scenario had never happened before.

Asgore frowned and pulled Frisk behind him, then pushed the kid toward Undyne. “What is the meaning of this?” Asgore demanded of the fair-haired man pointing a spear at him.

“I could ask you the same, goat-man,” replied the man, who had apparently been the one to interrupt Papyrus. “’Tis you who’ve intruded on the realm of my lord Angus Og, but ’tis strange you and your companions are. We’ve not seen the likes o’ you before... saving the child, that is.”

Undyne looked down at Frisk. “You know these guys, nerd?”

A wide-eyed, vigorous shake of the head was Frisk’s only answer. Sans hadn’t seen the kid look that scared in quite some time.

Asgore’s frown deepened. “Angus Og... I do not know the name. What manner of man is he?”

The fair-haired... _fellow_ laughed. “Sure and it’s no man he is! What, have ye not heard of the Aos Sí?”

“The... the _what?!_ ”

“er, your majesty,” Sans piped up, rubbing the back of his cervical vertebrae, “something tells me we didn’t black out earlier just because the barrier fell.”

The fair-haired fellow shot a puzzled look first at Sans, then back at Asgore. “Majesty?”

Asgore nodded. “I am Asgore Dreemurr, King of Monsters. My people and I have been sealed away beneath Mt. Ebott for seven hundred years. We believed humans to be the only other sentient species in our world, but... perhaps we were mistaken.” He looked back at Sans and added, “Or perhaps we are no longer in the world we knew.”

Sans nodded. “that’s my guess. alphys? what says the royal scientist?”

Alphys slouched even more than usual and wrung her hands so hard Sans was afraid she’d rub the scales off. “I-i-i-it c-could be. I d-don’t know how it would be p-possible, but... but Frisk doesn’t know anything about these people, either, and... and there’s never been a-any mention of anybody n-named A-Angus Og in... in any of the newspapers we’ve found in the dump.”

“oh, i’ve got a general hypothesis as to _how_. not real clear on the details of the mechanics, aside from the accident with the core being involved, but... heh. frisk knows what i’m talking about, don’t you, kiddo?”

Frisk startled and looked slightly guilty. Bingo. The two of them hadn’t talked _much_ about the Resets and what the time loop might be doing to the universe, and they definitely hadn’t talked about the possibility that the Barrier could have turned the Underground into a pocket dimension and that the CORE accident had weakened its connection to its home multiverse, but it was the only explanation Sans could think of. And it looked like Frisk had come to the same conclusion.

The fair-haired guy looked skeptically at Sans, then returned his attention to Asgore. “Right. An ye’d care to come with me, Your Majesty, perhaps we can work out what’s going on. Your people are to wait here under guard until we return.”

Asgore looked uncertain, but whatever objection he was about to voice was forestalled by Papyrus, who had been watching the darkening sky and whose jaw suddenly dropped with a clack. “HUMAN!” he cried, turning to Frisk. “IF THE SUN HAS SET, DOES... DOES THAT MEAN WE GET TO SEE STARS? REAL STARS?!”

Frisk nodded.

“ **WOWIE!!!** TODAY IS THE BEST DAY EVER! ”

Undyne raised her right eyebrow and put her ear fins back. “Papyrus, we almost _died_.”

“IT WAS WORTH IT!”

Sans chuckled. “you’ll have to excuse my brother,” he said to the guards. “we’re not as old as the boss here, been underground all our lives, and papyrus... guess you could say he’s got stars in his eyes.”

It took a moment for Papyrus to get the pun, but when he did, his “NYEH!!” made everyone laugh.

“Very well,” said Asgore once the laughter had died down a bit. “If your people have no objections to my people stargazing while they wait?”

“None at all,” replied the fair-haired fellow. “’Tis a good night for it, and there’s to be a meteor shower this night as well.”

Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys oohed excitedly.

“Right,” said Asgore. “You six remain here.” And he followed the fair-haired fellow several dozen yards away, within sight but well out of earshot.

“Come sit with me, Frisk dear,” said Toriel.

Frisk smiled and complied, and the two of them sat down on the grass, Toriel quizzing the kid quietly about astronomy and Frisk signing answers. Papyrus, for his part, sat down and then flopped backward with a clatter to watch the sky. Sans sat down beside him, and Undyne strolled over to lie down on Papyrus’ other side.

But Alphys sat down in front of Sans, the deepening twilight not hiding her worried expression. “This is about the R-Resets, isn’t it?” she whispered.

Sans sighed. He wasn’t sure how much he’d told her and how much she already knew because of her position, but she clearly knew that much. “yeah. that’s the only thing that makes sense. i mean, we don’t know what effect that kind of time loop would have on space-time, or how multiverses exist relative to each other in extradimensional space, but if the underground was already developing into its own multiverse....”

“A Reset c-could change its momentum. In fact, it may have been Frisk’s first Reset that severed the Underground f-from our home universe, with each subsequent Reset driving it further away until we ended up... here. Wherever h-here is.”

“exactly. but why here? there’s... something strange about this place, alph. almost like it’s seen some resets itself, but not—not rewriting the timeline. i can’t put my finger on it.”

“W-well, you always were more sensitive to that sort of thing than the rest of us. Ever since... I-I mean, you’re the only one who even _remembers_ that there was an accident with the CORE.”

“not well enough,” Sans confessed even more quietly, looking down at his hands. “that’s why i keep notes every time.”

Yellow reptilian hands closed over his metacarpals. “Sans. Y-you’re the best resource we have for f-figuring this out. And i-i-it’s not just your memories. The... the fact you can teleport, the way you set up those d-dimensional boxes and your sentry stations... we _need_ you.” When Sans looked up, Alphys smiled shyly and added, “No bones about it.”

“NYARGH! NOT YOU, TOO, ALPHYS!!” Papyrus cried.

Sans laughed harder than he had all day, deliberately falling backward so that his cranium landed on the humerus of Papyrus’ outstretched arm. “ah, c’mon, paps, that _had_ to hit your funny bone.”

“SANS!!!”

Toriel and Frisk giggled, and Alphys grinned and got up to go lie on the far side of Undyne. And then puns were forgotten in favor of companionable silence, for the stars were beginning to appear. Sans almost wished he’d brought his telescope, but he really needed to clean the paint off the eyepiece before using it for real stargazing, and this way Papyrus could see everything at once. There’d be time enough to look for details later.

 _If_ things didn’t reset.

An hour or two passed, marked only by the motion of the stars overhead and soft murmurs of awe interrupting the sound of crickets and frogs, before Asgore finally returned. “Frisk is asleep?” he asked quietly.

Sans tore his gaze away from the heavens and turned his head to see that Frisk _had_ dozed off, head in Toriel’s lap. Toriel nodded and held a finger to her lips.

Asgore’s shoulders moved in a silent sigh. “We have much to discuss, urgently. And we are free to return to the Underground, but....”

Sans suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, his soul gripped with deep-seated fear. “er. a-asgore, i... i don’t... i mean, paps....”

“May we stay here tonight, Your Majesty?” Papyrus interrupted, keeping his voice uncharacteristically low. “It’s such a pleasant night; I hate to go in so soon. And Frisk _is_ already asleep.”

Sans’ eye sockets slid shut in relief. Trust the Great Papyrus to know exactly how to cover for his big brother’s phobias, even if he didn’t understand them.

When he opened his eye sockets again, Asgore was looking at the fair-haired fellow, who was giving the group a pitying look. “We can give ye a pavilion for the night,” he offered.

Asgore nodded. “Thank you.”

The fair-haired fellow chanted something in a language Sans didn’t recognize, and a white tent big enough to sleep seven appeared, as did a fire and a circle of six chairs. “We shall return at dawn for your decision,” he told Asgore then.

“I understand. Please give Angus Og my regards.”

The fair-haired fellow nodded once, then spoke to his companions in their own language, and they vanished. Toriel gently carried Frisk into the tent while everyone else was getting up, and then the monsters gathered around the fire, with Asgore and Toriel sitting opposite each other, Papyrus and Undyne flanking Asgore, and Sans and Alphys on either side of Toriel. The chairs apparently had magical properties, since they accommodated Sans’ short, stout frame and Asgore’s nearly nine-foot bulk with equal ease.

“Sans is correct,” Asgore began, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and looking primarily at Toriel. “We are no longer in the world we knew. This mountain once housed a mine; now it has been colonized by a group of fae, the Tuatha De Danaan. They are kin to the fae you used to read of in that book of Shakespeare you found so long ago. They are called ‘the People of the Sidhe’ because they, too, had been forced underground by humans and lived in mounds until Angus Og led this group here. They were not imprisoned as we were, but their dealings with humans have perforce been strained. Other monsters do exist, but most either have or can take human form, and humans generally do not know about them.”

“That could prove to be a difficulty for renewing contact with humans,” Toriel noted. “We cannot hide what we are.”

“No, nor can we trust most of monsterkind in this world. The Tuatha De are safe enough, but the others....” Asgore shook his shaggy head slowly. “They _prey_ upon humans, consume them as food or simply rejoice in destruction. Werewolves, vampires, and worse—races even we would shun. They would not welcome us.”

“Asgore....”

“Do not remind me of my own crimes, Toriel. I am no longer fit to be king, and I know that. But even if Frisk had not taught me the meaning of mercy, my quarrel is not with the humans of this world. I do not want open war. Not again,” he added so softly that Sans barely heard him.

Toriel rather pointedly said nothing.

“And there is already a shadow war ongoing,” Asgore continued at his former volume. “There are humans called _hunters_ who seek out and destroy monsters who slay humans. And there are powers even greater than humans that have pushed this world to the brink of destruction twice over. Angels, one faction of spirits is called, servants of the Most High—or so they were created. Many have forsaken His precepts out of scorn for humans. The other spirits are demons.”

That word sent a chill down Sans’ spine. He didn’t know why. Papyrus gasped, so maybe Sans wasn’t the only one worried by it.

“We are beset by dangers,” Toriel sighed. “What choice did the fae set before you?”

Asgore sat back. “Three options, though two will require the approval of Angus Og, and he will likely require our fealty. If we move elsewhere, of course, that will not be necessary, but that road would carry great risks. We could remain in the Underground, though without the Barrier, but our movements outside might be limited. Or we could, at least in theory, build our own settlement here on the mountain. If Angus Og permits that choice, the Tuatha De would help us build _and_ establish a glamour over it. The people of the town would never know that we are here unless we leave the covered area, and it would also hide us from... almost all hunters.”

Undyne frowned. “Almost all?”

Asgore nodded. “All but the Winchesters.”

“Who are they?”

“Perhaps the greatest hunters in the world, though Liam tells me they never kill monsters that have not taken human life. Two brothers, Sam and Dean. They it was who stopped the angels and demons from destroying this world. The glamour cannot hide us from Dean’s eyes, for he is fae-touched.”

“Wow.” Undyne rubbed at her gills. “Kinda wanna fight these guys, just to see what they’re made of, but... if they’re that dangerous, we can’t let ’em find us.”

Toriel sighed. “We cannot deprive our people of hope by forcing them to remain in the Underground. But neither can we move—I surmise that there are other hunters who would kill us all simply because we are monsters.”

Asgore nodded sadly. “Moving would risk their learning of us, and I fear we would not be able to protect everyone.”

Sans half expected Papyrus to make some comment about winning hunters over with spaghetti, but Papyrus was staring into the fire and didn’t seem inclined to say anything.

“B-building here doesn’t seem l-like such a bad option,” said Alphys. “I mean, it d-doesn’t seem like... there are all that m-many humans around.” She gestured toward the twinkling lights of the town a few miles away; it really didn’t look as big as the Ebott they’d left behind, which had been large enough to support a university. “And w-we could wait and... and go into town only on H-Halloween or something. That m-might be hard for Frisk, but....”

“frisk probably doesn’t exist here,” Sans noted. “kid shows up in town out of nowhere, no parents, no papers, could raise some awkward questions.”

“Which are precisely what we want to avoid in order to prevent hunters from finding us,” Toriel agreed. “Frisk must remain with us, no matter what we choose. But Alphys has the right of it. And building anew would give us all a fresh start, plus the satisfaction of establishing the work of our own hands.”

Asgore nodded. “I agree. In fact, I thought so from the first. I simply did not want to make a decision of this sort without involving all of you, especially as it may mean accepting another’s overlordship. If I had been more willing to heed wise counsel before... well. We cannot change the past.”

Sans wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t comment.

Toriel stood. “Well. They will return at dawn. We should rest while we can.”

Asgore also rose and quenched the fire with a wave of his paw. Alphys and Undyne jumped up and hurried into the tent. But Papyrus still sat staring at where the fire had been, so Sans remained where he was.

“Sans?” Toriel prompted.

Sans shook his head. “go ahead, tori. we’ll be there in a minute.”

“All right.” And she ducked into the tent.

When Papyrus still didn’t do more than sigh, Sans moved his chair closer. “paps?”

The light of the rising moon glinted off Papyrus’ skull as he finally looked at Sans. “I just wanted to make friends with the humans,” he whispered sadly.

“you might still get the chance. if alphys is right, we’ll get to go into town once a year, at least. and we can make friends with the tuatha de, probably.”

“But... but humans will be afraid of us.”

“that was probably gonna happen even if we hadn’t wound up here. we’re not like them. they call us monsters for a reason.”

“Sans....”

“’ey, c’mon, bro. we’re _out_.” Sans pointed upward, and together they looked up at the moon.

“Wowie,” Papyrus breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

Sans rubbed his brother’s armbones. “we’re out,” he repeated. “one way or another, everything’s going tibia-kay.”

Papyrus huffed but didn’t object to the pun.

Little did either of them know that hundreds of miles away, another pair of brothers sat on the hood of their black ’67 Chevy Impala in barely comfortable silence, watching the same stars and desperately clinging to the same hope.

* * *

* This is _not_ necessarily the date according to the Underground’s calendar.


	2. Chapter 1: Flesh and Spirit

_February 7, 2013_

“Morning,” said Dean Winchester, bringing waffles to his brother Sam at one of the tables in the library of the Men of Letters’ bunker. “Better eat fast.”

Sam looked up from his laptop and accepted a plate. “Why? What’s the rush?”

“Need to run up to Whitefish for the weekend, check on the cabin. We kinda left in a hurry, if you remember.” The cabin in question had originally belonged to fellow hunter Rufus Turner and, at his death, passed to the brothers’ long-time friend and foster father Bobby Singer, who had moved into it after his own house was destroyed. Since Bobby’s death on a hunt, the Winchesters had been using the cabin as a home base—at least until they’d inherited the bunker shortly after Martin Luther King Day.

Sam blinked. “I thought you went up there last week, after you went to see Kevin and Garth.”

Dean frowned and sat down across the table from Sam with his own plate; Sam had already set a second mug of coffee there for him. They’d just missed each other in the kitchen, apparently. “No. Stopped off in Lawrence to see Missouri, but she wasn’t home. Oh, and....” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I went to Normal, checked on Henry’s grave. Was thinkin’ maybe we should use some of the Men of Letters’ funds to get him a real headstone; I dunno how long that wooden cross is gonna last.” The recent death of their time-traveling grandfather still weighed heavy on Dean’s conscience.

Sam nodded slowly. “Okay. That’s... that’s fine. Good idea. But Dean, we just got back three days ago.”

Dean squirmed a little. “I dunno, dude. I just... have this feeling we need to head up there. Call it a hunch.”

Sam sighed, shrugged, and picked up his fork. “All right. I guess we can pick up a load of Bobby’s books to bring back while we’re there.”

“Heh. Bet you can’t say that ten times fast.”

“Bet not taken.”

“Aw, c’mon, Sammy.”

Sam very pointedly took a bite of waffle, but his eyes were sparkling with mirth.

* * *

That evening, the brothers stopped for supper in Casper, Wyoming, and at the end of the meal were debating whether to stay there for the night or get a few towns further down the road when Dean’s cell phone rang. “Hey, Dean,” said Garth when Dean answered. “Are y’all on a hunt right now?”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “No, actually. Why, has Kevin got something on how to close the gates of Hell?”

“Not yet. Apparently this tablet’s way harder than the Leviathan one. No, this one’s just a regular case—and honestly, it _might_ not be supernatural, but my gut says it is. Y’all are the closest hunters right now, so I figured I’d give you a call.”

“All right. Lay it on me.”

“Ebott, Idaho. There’ve been six stabbings since the first of the year. Couple of the victims lived long enough to describe the attacker as ‘a kid with red eyes and a creepy smile.’” Garth’s Tennessee twang shifted just enough on that last bit that Dean could tell it was a direct quote, either from a news article or a police report.

“Red eyes. That’s usually....”

“A crossroads demon, right, but it ain’t the right MO. There’s no sign of hellhounds, an’ none of the victims had any sudden successes or anything like that.”

Dean hummed thoughtfully. “Okay, we’ll check it out. Thanks, Garth. Tell Kevin hello for us.”

“Will do, and you say hey to Sam for me. Say, have you an’ Sam quit bein’ idjits yet?”

The corner of Dean’s mouth quirked upward in a wry smile. Just a few months earlier, Garth had played a crucial role in preventing a specter from exploiting hard feelings between the brothers and using Dean to kill Sam over Sam’s failure to look for Dean during the year he’d been missing in Purgatory. “We’re workin’ on it. ’Course, Bobby’d tell you we’ll never quit bein’ idjits.”

Garth chuckled sadly. “All right. Y’all take care, now.”

“We will, dude. Thanks.” And Dean hung up. “Garth says hey,” he told Sam.

Sam had his notebook out and was just putting the pen back in its loop. “So _not_ something we need to add to our list of reasons to kill Crowley?”

Dean huffed. “Nah, but it’s weird enough to take a look at. Six stabbings since New Year’s.”

“Huh.” Sam put his notebook away and got out his wallet. “We’re going straight through, then?”

“Yeah, better. We can switch off in another couple of hours.”

Sam blinked. “You’re... actually letting me drive?”

“Hell, Sam, you’ve been asleep half the day. And I don’t know where in Idaho this place is—could be another nine, ten hours. I gotta sleep _sometime_.”

Sam blinked again, then shrugged. “Okay. I’m just... surprised, is all. You don’t let me drive much these days.”

Dean sighed heavily. “Sam....”

Sam shook his head. “Never mind. Forget I said anything. You want me to start researching this place before we switch?”

“Yeah.” Dean didn’t want to have the conversation Sam had started anyway. “Need to have some idea what we’re up against.”

“Okay.” Sam dropped a $20 on the table, and the brothers left.

As the Impala pulled out of the restaurant’s parking lot, Sam quickly found directions to Ebott, which was way up in the mountains near Salmon (well, for certain values of ‘near’). “Mostly ranchers and tourists now,” he reported an hour or so later, “since that area’s full of national parks; only about a thousand residents inside the city limits year-round. But it started out as a mining town. The population’s heavily Irish. The Mt. Ebott Mine played out shortly before World War I, and the mine company _tried_ to cover up the entrance and the main shaft. But there are rumors that the shaft is still open, reports of disappearances over the years. And get this: the old-timers say the mountain is home to a branch of the Tuatha De Danaan.”

“Great,” Dean groaned. “More fairies. Just what we need.”

“Either way, the local lore says that those who climb Mt. Ebott never return.”

“But there’s nothing about the fairies going into town?”

Sam shook his head. “Nothing that I can find. Now, there was a tremor in August, and afterward hikers started reporting hearing voices in the woods around the mine entrance, music, laughter... even construction noises, which is weird. But after Labor Day, the tourist traffic drops off, and so do reports of anything out of the ordinary outside of town. And nothing unusual happened in town until the first stabbing.”

“Found the police reports yet?”

“No. The police department doesn’t even have a website, so they’re probably still mostly analogue. We’ll have to get those when we get there. No, all I’ve found are reports in the Salmon newspaper, and if there’s a pattern, it’s not showing up yet. The stabbings usually happen after midnight, but they’re all over town, all ages, all walks of life. I’d say crime of opportunity except that the last victim had one of those high-end security systems, and the police chief said that the killer would have had to be, quote, ‘extremely determined’ to get past it.”

“Huh.” Dean found a safe place to pull over and did so. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“It’s deliberate. Whoever this is wants attention.”

“Question is....”

“Why. If it’s a terrorist group, they’d have claimed it by now. So is it someone with a grudge against humanity, or....”

“... does someone want _our_ attention?”

The brothers looked at each other for a moment. Then Sam shut his laptop and put it in the back seat, and they got out at the same time to switch drivers.

Dean slept relatively well despite his nagging doubts about the case and woke only when Sam pulled in at a gas station in the town just south of Ebott. Road conditions still being treacherous at this time of year, Sam had erred on the side of caution and driven slowly, so the trip from Casper had taken quite a bit longer than the nine hours his map app had predicted. After getting gas and coffee and changing into their Fed suits, the brothers switched off again and arrived at the Ebott Police Department right around first light. They walked in to find the female officer at the front desk, a brunette with a nametag that read _Sullivan_ , nodding off and about to faceplant into a pile of paperwork.

Dean cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”

Sullivan startled awake. “Yes? Can I help you?”

“Agent Page, Agent Plant, FBI. We’re here—”

“Oh, thank _God!_ ” she interrupted, bursting into tears and burying her face in her hands before they could even present their fake credentials. “Thank God someone called you! I’d been praying for help—I can’t take this case anymore!”

The Winchesters blinked at each other. “The stabbings?” Sam ventured.

The officer nodded and reached for a Kleenex. “There’s been another overnight. My mother.” She swallowed hard. “What good is being the police chief if I can’t even protect my own _mom?!_ ”

As she started sobbing, Sam went around the desk and put an arm across her shoulders. “Hey. It’s okay. That’s why we’re here. We’re gonna stop this.”

“What if you can’t?”

“We’ll find a way, Chief, I promise.”

“Angela,” she choked out. “Please call me Angela.”

“Angela. We’ve got a good track record with this sort of thing. Check with Sheriff Mills in Sioux Falls if you want; we’ve worked with her for several years now.”

“And we’ve got resources through the Bureau you don’t have access to,” Dean added. “I know even one murder in a town like this is a big deal. Seven in five weeks... it’s seven too many. But we’ll do everything we can to make sure your mom’s is the last.”

“I’ve never worked a serial case before,” Angela admitted. “If I had... if I’d been faster....”

Sam rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself. I wasn’t able to stop a serial killer from killing my dad. You just... you can’t save everyone, even in the best of times.”

She sobbed again, then got a fresh Kleenex to dry her eyes and tried to pull herself together. “Thank you, Agent.”

“Sam. This is Dean.”

“Sam, Dean. My... my officers are finishing up at the c-crime scene.” She sniffled. “Uh, here.” She threw away the tissues and gathered up the stack of folders in front of her, then handed them to Dean. “Here’s everything on the first six. The last one... the last one, before last night, we got some video off... off the security cameras. It’s, uh.” She ran a hand over her mouth and looked at Sam. “C-can you....”

“Is it on this computer?” Sam asked, gesturing to the monitor off to the side of the desk.

She nodded. “It’s... the folder’s open.”

“Okay. Why don’t you go to the break room for a few minutes? We can call for you when we need you.”

She nodded again and pointed. “It’s... down this hall.”

“Great. Thanks.” Sam supported Angela as she stood and let go of her only when she proved steady enough on her feet not to need him. Then he waited until she had made it partway down the hall before sitting down in her chair. “Some hunch,” he murmured.

“Shut up,” Dean murmured back and came around the desk, setting the folders down as he leaned over Sam’s shoulder. “What have we got?”

Sam quickly pulled up the video from the outside of the next-to-last victim’s residence, displaying the sidewalk that presumably led to the front door. The camera had clearly been operating in night-vision mode, as the footage was in black and white. Nothing happened for several seconds; then a child, maybe eight or nine years old, walked into view. The kid’s dark hair was cut in a Buster Brown style, and between the angle of the camera and the fact that the kid was looking down, Dean couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Whoever it was didn’t have on a coat, though, only an already bloodstained sweater with two bold horizontal stripes across the front, and was clutching a wicked-looking knife. The image fritzed a few times as the kid approached, probably reacting to EMF.

Then suddenly the kid stopped and looked up, straight into the camera, eyes wide and dark corner to corner and mouth curling up into a smile that made Dean’s skin crawl. The kid stood there smiling at the camera long enough for several good stills, then walked off beneath the camera—and seconds later, the feed ended.

“Cut the wires?” Sam asked.

Dean checked the crime scene report. “Yeah. Hey, back it up and zoom in. I wanna check something.”

Sam nodded and backed up to a frame of the kid staring into the camera, then zoomed in several times. The kid’s ears weren’t visible, but... yes, just below the bottom of the hair, there was a dark blotch on the neck.

“Yahtzee.” Dean pointed.

“Ectoplasm,” Sam agreed. “Wish the video were in color so we could be sure what _type_ of ghost we’re dealing with, a specter or a regular ghost.”

“We can see if there’s ectoplasm at the latest crime scene. Check for EMF, too, just in case. The weird thing is the red eyes.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe it’s not a full-fledged demon yet.”

“But wouldn’t the eyes be black, then?”

“Mm, maybe. If we can trap it, maybe we can ask. So crime scene first, then locate the kid?”

Dean nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Better print off that screenshot so we can show it to people.”

“Right.”

Sam was still trying to coax the aging laser printer into printing the still without jamming when an exhausted-looking male officer with a name tag that read _Hennessy_ walked in. “Who are you?” he challenged as soon as he saw the Winchesters.

“Agent Page, Agent Plant, FBI,” Dean replied, and the brothers flashed their fake badges.

Hennessy blinked. “Got here awful quick, didn’t you? Angela wasn’t gonna call you guys until 8.”

“Actually, we got word yesterday through some... unofficial channels.”

“Ohhh, I bet it was Mrs. Kennedy. She said she was losing confidence in Angela’s handling of the case.”

“It’s not Chief Sullivan’s fault,” Sam noted. “Crime investigation’s not like _CSI_ —it’s pretty rare to solve a case inside of a week, especially a serial case like this.”

“That’s what _I_ said!” Hennessy huffed and shook his head. “Civilians.”

“Yeah,” the brothers chorused.

“Name’s Jerry Hennessy, by the way.” Hennessy shook hands with both brothers. “It’s gonna be a few hours before my report’s done, but is there anything I can help you with in the meantime?”

“Have you uncovered any connections among the victims that would suggest a pattern to who’s being targeted?” Sam asked as the picture finally printed correctly.

Hennessy shook his head. “No. I mean, in a town this size, everybody knows everybody, except... no one remembers ever seeing this kid before. The one from the video, that is—you’ve seen it already, right?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, we just watched it. Weird behavior, like the kid wants to get caught.”

“I know, and that smile.” Hennessy shuddered. “Anyway, like I said, the victims all _knew_ each other, but the age range is pretty wide; only a couple of the vics were related, and I think that was chance. Education level varies from high school drop-out to MBA—that was the victim before Angela’s mom, and he was pretty new in town, just moved in about ten years ago. He was black; another vic was Hispanic. None of ’em went to the same church. They weren’t all in the same clubs. And it’s not like we can gather anything from the locations, either, because it doesn’t take more than a couple of hours to walk from one side of town to the other, even for a kid.”

“And you can’t think of anything happening around New Year’s that would have set somebody off?”

“No. It was real quiet, nothing out of the ordinary. The Methodist church had a Watch Night service, and we had fireworks down at the city park, but that was it.”

“Anything else, anything at _all_? Grave desecration, new construction....”

Hennessy gave Dean an odd look. “Grave desecration?”

“We have to consider all the angles,” Sam replied. “You know a lot of neopagans and such move up this way for occult reasons.”

“But there’s never been anything like that around here, unless you believe the old stories about the fairies in the mine. It’s not like we advertise that. There’s a lot of Shoshone heritage around Salmon, but nobody’s found even a campsite around here, never mind an old burying ground. And by now, even the newcomers know where the old-timers say the fairies revel and such, and even people who don’t believe in that kind of thing will at least stay away from those places just to humor the neighbors. Plus, that kid was definitely not a fairy.”

Dean frowned. “You say that like you’ve seen one.”

Hennessy froze for a moment. “Uh, well, I mean... that smile.”

Dean shrugged. “I’ll give you that.”

Hennessy relaxed. “Say, did you guys want to take a look at the latest crime scene? There’s a crime scene team coming up from Idaho Falls, but it’s probably gonna be another half hour or so before they get here.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Sam. “Agent Page should probably check with your boss first, and I need to print a couple more of these in case we need them to distribute.”

“Good idea,” Dean agreed. “Excuse me.” He left the files with Sam and went down the hall to the break room, where he found Angela sitting at a table staring into the cup of coffee she was cradling between her hands. He knocked on the doorframe to get her attention.

She drew a deep breath and looked up. “Hi.”

“Hey. How you holdin’ up?”

“Oh, well... you know.”

“Yeah. I do. I’ve been there.”

“I, uh... I called Sheriff Mills. She said you two were the best.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “She’s not bad herself. She’s a good friend. Listen, Angela... we’ve got a pretty good idea of what we’re dealin’ with here. Especially since there’s a minor involved, it might not ever go to trial. But I can promise you this: we’re gonna stop these killings.”

She drew another deep breath, more ragged this time, and sounded very young and scared when she asked, “It’s not... the fairies, is it?”

He came over and sat down across from her. “You believe in the supernatural?”

She shrugged a little and looked down at her coffee again. “Me and Jerry, when we were little, we... we were playing out in the woods too close to dark one time, and... it was Midsummer’s Eve, and we... we saw... something up near the mine. Lights and... and dancers.” She huffed and looked up and away, toward the corner of the room. “It probably sounds crazy.”

He shook his head. “No. I’ve seen ’em, too. Not here, but... just a couple weeks ago, actually, we had a case where a guy bound a fairy to kill for him.”

She looked back at him, wide-eyed. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. But that’s not what’s goin’ on here. We’ll know more when we check out your mom’s house, but right now we think the kid’s possessed by a vengeful spirit.”

“But... but _why?!_ My mom’s never had an enemy in her life! Everyone in town loves her!”

“She was probably picked at random, unless the spirit knew she was your mom. We think this thing wants attention.”

She swore, and a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Hey.” He reached across and covered her hands with his own. “We’re gonna stop this.”

“How? Nobody recognizes the child. We’ve asked.”

“Like I said, we’ve got resources. We’ll figure something out.” He really hoped they weren’t going to have to call Castiel in, given how erratic the angel’s behavior had been off and on since his return from Purgatory and how badly he’d handled his attempt to help with the Fred Jones case back in December. Maybe Garth or Charlie could hack a facial recognition database or something if the Winchesters couldn’t find clues about the kid’s whereabouts from anyone in town.

She sniffled and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” Then she pulled her left hand away to wipe the tears off her cheek. “Uh. You, um... need me to show you how to get to Mom’s house?”

“Nah, Jerry’s here. We’ve been talkin’ to him. He can give us directions.”

“Oh, good, good. Yeah, okay.”

“You take some time off, okay? Get some rest. Let us take it from here. Losin’ your mom like this... it’s hell.”

She sniffled, huffed, and tried to smile. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”

“Yeah. I was four.”

“Ho. Ouch.” She turned her right hand to grasp his left and gave it a slightly shaky squeeze. “Dean, thank you. For coming and taking the case and... for understanding.”

He smiled and squeezed back. “You’re welcome.”

He was just pulling his hand away when Sam came to the door, files under his arm. “Hey, you ready?”

“Yeah.” Dean pushed back from the table as Sam and Angela shared a tight, tired smile, and the brothers left.

Hennessy was waiting for them in the parking lot and gave them directions to the crime scene. Dean paid attention, but somehow his eye was drawn to the mountain just east of town, where he caught sight of smoke rising from what looked like a bunch of buildings.

And Hennessy noticed his distraction. “What?”

Dean nodded that direction. “What’s out there?”

“The... east end of town?”

“No, I mean up there.” Dean pointed toward what he was seeing.

“That’s... where the old mine is.”

“There a logging camp up there or something?”

Hennessy was starting to look a little weirded out. “No. There’s nothing there except the mine. Everybody stays away from it.”

Sam turned to look as well, shielding his eyes against the sun that was starting to peek past the mountains below the edge of the clouds moving in from the west. “Where are you looking?”

“ _There_.” Dean pointed again. “Bunch of buildings, looks like somebody’s living up there.”

Sam looked, then turned back to Dean with a skeptical expression. “Dude, there’s nothing there.”

“You don’t see the smoke?”

“No. All I see up there are trees.”

“Um,” said Hennessy. “If you guys don’t mind, I’d better get back inside and get started on my report.”

Dean sighed and tore his eyes away from the mountain. “Yeah, all right. Thanks.”

Hennessy nodded and beat a hasty retreat, and the brothers got back in their car. But Dean sat for a moment before starting the engine, staring out at the buildings that were still plain as day to his eyes.

“You seriously see something out there?” Sam asked quietly.

“Yeah. It’s like... hell, almost like a whole other town up there.”

“Okay. I believe you. But... how come you see it and I can’t?”

Dean shook his head. “I dunno. Could be fairy magic; Angela said she saw fairy dancers near the mine once on Midsummer’s Eve. But something tells me our ghost is up there somewhere.”

“Well, let’s check out the crime scene first, ask around here in town, just to make sure.”

Dean sighed again. “Okay.” He started the engine and backed out.

Mrs. Sullivan’s house was close enough to the police station that the Winchesters technically could have walked, except for the fact that it was starting to snow. There was still a police car parked in front of the house that turned out to belong to the third officer on duty that morning, who introduced himself as Tom Walsh. He was clearly hurting for Angela’s loss, too, but he willingly showed the brothers around and let Dean view photos from the scene that had been taken before the body was sent to the mortuary. His hypothesis, which tallied well with the evidence as far as Dean could see, was that the kid had shoved a brass planter through the back window into the breakfast room, used the mat from outside the back door to get past the broken glass without injury, then attacked Mrs. Sullivan when she came down to investigate the noise. Dean wasn’t sure which of the three deep gashes across Mrs. Sullivan’s chest had been fatal, but their ghost evidently knew what it was doing; it wouldn’t have been a long fight, despite the golf club with which Mrs. Sullivan had armed herself.

Sam made a sweep with the EMF meter while Walsh was showing Dean photos and got hits along the route the kid had probably taken into the house. But there was no ectoplasm to be found, inside or outside the house. Nor did they find any mention of unidentified goop in any of the previous reports, which they went through back in the car.

“This is so weird,” Sam concluded as Dean started the car to drive to a coffee shop or diner before the CSI team could arrive. “In some ways, it’s a classic case of ghost possession, but with no ectoplasm beyond what we saw on the video and the thing with the eyes....”

“Yeah, I know, plus the attention-seeking. But it avoided the broken glass, and apparently it keeps the kid in the same clothes. It’s almost like... it doesn’t want the _host_ to know anything’s going on, but it sure as hell wants _us_ to know it’s killing.”

“Or maybe it doesn’t want the host’s _parents_ to know what’s happening. That would explain why the attacks are not just after dark but after midnight. It clearly doesn’t care about whether the vics are awake or not—in fact, it had to know breaking in that way would wake Mrs. Sullivan.”

“What about whether there are guns in the house?”

Sam flipped back through the files. “Three cases, and in all of them the vic was caught in his or her sleep. Third one, the wife woke up and went for the gun in the nightstand, and the kid slashed at her and then took off—that was the one where Angela was able to get a witness statement. The husband died on the way to the hospital.”

Dean nodded thoughtfully. “So Mom and Dad go to bed late, would notice if the kid was hurt... probably notice if the kid woke up covered in blood, too. But the family doesn’t live in town, although they’re close enough for the ghost to walk the kid into town. They probably don’t get local news, either, or they’d know something was up with the crime spree.” He parked in front of a café on Main Street and looked up at the mountain again, finding the buildings exactly where he’d seen them before. “Sam, are you _sure_....”

“I see nothing but trees up there, Dean. C’mon, let’s get some breakfast.”

Dean sighed. “All right. Might as well start asking about the kid while we’re here.”

But nobody at the café had ever seen the kid. Nor had anyone at any of the businesses on Main Street that they checked after breakfast. The elementary school had no record of any new students that year, and the secretaries didn’t recognize the kid’s face. The brothers checked everywhere, even at the incongruous Walmart that stood at the north end of town. Nada.

“Kind of surprised to see a Walmart in a town this size,” Dean confessed to the manager there.

“Well, we do most of our business in the summers,” the manager replied. “We get enough tourist traffic through town to turn a good profit that sees us through the winter, and the ranchers and townspeople appreciate not having to go all the way to Missoula or Idaho Falls to do their shopping. Although....” He paused.

The brothers were instantly alert. “Yes?” they chorused.

“Well, this might not have any bearing on the case, but... there was a big group that came through on Halloween, bought up a bunch of stuff—a year’s supply, in some cases. Normal prepper type stuff, y’know, canned goods and so forth, plus some clothes and electronics, bunch of DVDs and CDs and books. All in very good costumes, too, like Hollywood quality.”

“How do you mean?” Dean asked. “The clothes?”

“No, the makeup. Well, some of them must have been suits: a couple of bears, some rabbits and dinosaurs, a robot, a couple of... well, they looked sort of like giant white goats, except they had fangs and paws like bears, and the ‘ram’ had this... golden mane and beard. But there was one lady made up like an exotic fish, and another short lady dressed as a yellow lizard with an overbite, and two pretty realistic skeletons. The lizard lady I remember ’cause she bought a ton of anime, ramen, and Pocky; those aren’t real popular around here except with the tourists. Oh, and Sudoku books. And the skeletons bought out practically all our pasta and sauces!”

Sam frowned. “You wouldn’t happen to have any security video footage that far back, would you?”

“No, not video, but I snapped some pictures because the costumes were so good. I mean, the fish lady had fins over her ears that actually moved as if they were real!”

“Could we get hard copies of those? As you say, it might not be relevant, but if these people live nearby, they might know something more about the case.”

“Yeah, sure. Just a minute.” The manager ducked into his office.

“What do you think?” Sam asked quietly while he was gone.

“Sounds like a bunch of monsters tryin’ to hide in plain sight,” Dean replied at the same volume. “Can’t pass for human, so they come into town the one day they know they won’t _have_ to pass for human.”

“I agree. Sounds like they’re new here. And a year’s worth of supplies means they live fairly close and plan to stay here.”

“Weird part is the food. I mean, ramen, Pocky, spaghetti?”

“Well, maybe they don’t feed on humans, Dean. Not all supernatural creatures do.”

Dean grimaced. “Guess we should check Dad’s journal, see if he encountered any of these types. Especially the goat-things.”

“Yeah. I wonder, though... tremor in August, monster shopping spree in October....”

“Ghost killing spree in January. Yeah, that’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“Here you are, Agent,” the manager interrupted, returning with a stack of printouts that he handed to Sam. “I’m afraid the quality might not be very good; I took these on my phone.”

“What about credit card receipts?” Dean asked as Sam flipped through the pictures.

The manager shook his head. “No luck there, I’m afraid. They all paid cash. Some of them looked like they were carrying gold—might have cashed some of it in at the pawn shop downtown.”

“Well, these are distinctive costumes, even though they obscure the faces,” Sam noted. “We can see if they went anywhere else while they were in town. Did you happen to notice where they went from here?”

The manager hadn’t, but one of the checkers had helped the shoppers load their vehicles and said they hadn’t gone back into town. When asked which way they had gone, the young man replied, “East, I think—but that’s really weird, y’know, because there’s nothing out that way except the road to the old mine.”

“All right, well, we’ll check it out. Thank you both for your time,” Dean said, and after a round of handshakes and the purchase of a couple of bags of rock salt, the brothers were off again.

The pawn broker, it turned out, hadn’t dealt with the shoppers, but the jewelry store owner had seen the male goat-creature and marveled at the dexterity of the paw ‘gloves’; he’d cashed in several thousand dollars’ worth of gold bullion— not minted with an identifiable image, but genuine gold—and presented a foreign ID card with the name Asgore Dreemur. Some of the nearby shop owners remembered the fish lady and the tall skeleton, who had been loud but friendly, and the waitress at the café had seen the short skeleton a few times since Halloween, always well wrapped up and wearing sunglasses and always buying a different flavor of pie that he claimed he would take home to his brother and girlfriend. He was so well disguised, in fact, that she recognized him only because he’d been wearing the same blue hoodie every time he’d come in. She’d never seen him arrive or leave, however, and he’d always paid cash. Almost nobody had seen the shoppers driving into town or leaving town, either. But the few who had all agreed that they’d gone east—and everyone, regardless of what they’d seen, agreed that the only thing east of town was the old mine.

“Welp, I guess we’d better go check out the mine,” Dean said as they left their last witness.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Dean.”

“Humor me, Sam. Okay? It’s our only lead anyway.”

“All right, fine. Maybe we can find out what’s causing you to see things out there.”

Dean didn’t take the bait on that one, just pointed the Impala toward the old mine road. The pavement gave out about a mile from town, but the dirt portion of the road was mysteriously clear even though it was beginning to snow in earnest. For his part, Sam mostly busied himself reviewing the notes from their interviews and the files from the first six stabbings.

Then, just about the time Dean rounded a bend in the road and caught sight of a sign reading _WELCOME TO EAST EBOTT_ , Sam looked up and gasped. “What the _hell_ —where did the town come from?!”

Dean only snickered and kept driving.

* * *

* It really is a tight squeeze trying to fit “LARP and the Real Girl,” “As Time Goes By,” “Everybody Hates Hitler,” _and_ this case in before “Trial and Error,” which takes place over Valentine’s Day. To make it work, I’ve assumed that the Moondoor event—contrary to the one dated prop hells_half_acre found in the ep—quite sensibly takes place over the MLK weekend, that “As Time Goes By” picks up no more than a day or two later, and that, as hells_half_acre suggests, Dean’s “two weeks” away from the bunker in “Everybody Hates Hitler” is not a full fortnight.


	3. Chapter 2: Blood and Sans

“ _This_ is what you were seeing in town,” Sam repeated as Dean drove down the main street of so-called East Ebott, which was lined with log buildings of various shapes and sizes and had an old-school boardwalk along which creatures of a bewildering variety of non-human forms were walking. “This... I mean, these cabins look _new_. What do you bet the building started....”

“Less than six months ago,” Dean agreed, “just after the tremor. Would explain the construction noises people were hearing. And this close to the mine, hidden from the view from town... they’re probably under the fairies’ protection.”

“Yeah, _and_ they’re building in an area people already know to avoid, close to the mine entrance and the main shaft. Lessens the chance of anyone just wandering in by accident.”

“Which is gonna make it _real_ awkward trying to explain how we got here on purpose.”

“We’re just... Feds. Following up a lead.”

“And where the hell are we supposed to start, dude?”

Sam sighed, scanned the boardwalk, and pointed to a spot a couple of blocks up the street where there was a... tortoise wearing a pith helmet and leaning on a cane while talking with a rabbit in a dress. “We can start with an old-timer.”

For lack of a better option, Dean drove in that direction, noting some of the signs on the buildings as they passed: Muffet’s Bakery, Grillby’s Bar and Grill, and something called a Tem Shop (whatever that meant). There weren’t any other cars on the street, so Dean just parked alongside the boardwalk next to the tortoise, leaving room for Sam to open his door. Sam tucked one copy of the kid’s picture into his jacket pocket; Dean took another just in case they needed to split up. Then the brothers exchanged a look, braced themselves, and got out in tandem.

“hOI!” someone shouted from the other side of the street, and Dean looked to see a sort of... cross between a cat and a dog with human-ish black hair on its head, although the rest of it was white. (Well, the cat ears were black, but the dog ears were white.) It was grinning at him, a sort of anime grin. “i’m tEMMIE!!”

“Uh, hi,” Dean replied.

“awwAwa humans so... TALL!” Temmie made a noise that was almost the verbal equivalent of smashing one’s hands on a keyboard, then flopped over in a dead faint.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Well, it wasn’t the weirdest reaction they’d ever gotten.

Then Dean became aware of something at his feet. It was kind of shaped like a large turtle, except... it was a bathtub. A walking blue bathtub full of water, with a rubber duck floating in it. And the tub’s little round green head was peering up at Dean.

“Wosh u hands,” said the tub.

Dean blinked. “Little cold out here for that, isn’t it?”

“Don’t worry, sonny,” said a dry male voice that turned out to belong to the tortoise, who was watching them now with one eye open and the other shut. “It won’t freeze you. Just humor the boy.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other again and shrugged. “All right,” Dean said and held out his hands.

The tub sprayed a jet of surprisingly warm, soapy water over Dean’s hands, and over Sam’s when he came around the front of the car a moment later. They made a show of scrubbing, then held their hands out again to be rinsed. The water dried almost instantly.

The tub looked happy for a moment, then cast a skeptical eye over the Impala. “Wosh u car?”

“Knock yourself out,” Dean replied. “Only the outside, though. And don’t scratch my paint.”

The tub bobbed its head, then trundled closer to the front bumper and manifested a soapy sponge. An appendage sticking out from its back end that looked like a crank started turning, almost like the tub was wagging its tail.

The tortoise laughed. “Good of you boys to be so kind to young Woshua there. He’s harmless, you know, just anxious.”

“What about Temmie?” Sam asked.

“Ah, Temmie’s all right. You just surprised her. Bob should be along in a moment; he’ll look after her. But I take it I’m the one you want to speak to. Name’s Gerson.”

“Mr. Gerson,” Sam repeated as the brothers made their way up onto the boardwalk. “I’m Agent Plant; this is Agent Page. We’re with the FBI.”

“The what?”

“The... Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Gerson blinked his left eye several times, then laughed wryly and shook his head. “Seems there’s a lot more to learn about this place than we thought. ’Course, times have changed; that’s to be expected when you’ve been locked away as long as we were. But I don’t recall reading much about federal whozits and whatzits and all before we wound up here.”

Dean frowned a little. “Sorry, could you explain that?”

“Well, I don’t really know all the whys and wherefores. You’d have to ask Alphys about all that; she used to be the Royal Scientist. All I know is, centuries ago, we monsters fought a war against humans and lost. They forced us all underground and raised a barrier with the power of seven human souls. It took the power of seven other souls to break it. But when the Barrier fell... we weren’t in the same world anymore.”

“And you arrived here when?”

“’Bout six months ago.” Gerson looked at the boys more narrowly. “Why, what are you boys investigatin’?”

“There’s been a series of murders in Ebott,” Sam replied.

Dean suddenly got the feeling that they were being watched from behind by something very dangerous. But the watcher seemed more wary than hostile, trying to determine whether the Winchesters were a threat before acting. He made the deliberate choice not to turn around.

“So far the evidence suggests that the killer might be hiding nearby,” Sam went on. “Nobody in town was able to help us any, so we hoped someone out here would be able to give us more information. We’re just looking for witness statements.”

Gerson tilted his head a little. “Not suspects?”

“No, we believe the killer’s human,” said Dean. “Or at least _used_ to be human—the evidence points to the possibility that we’re dealing with a vengeful spirit.”

“SEE, SANS!” crowed a male voice from behind the brothers. “I TOLD YOU THEY WERE PROBABLY OKAY!”

“heh,” answered another. “you think _everyone’s_ probably okay.”

“AND I’M RIGHT! WELL, AT LEAST THIS TIME I’M RIGHT.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other yet again and turned around to see the two skeletons from the Walmart pictures walking toward them, dressed more for the cold weather but still unmistakably skeletal and with a good two feet of height difference between them. The short, stocky one—Sans?—was smiling the same cartoonish way he had been in the photos, but somehow the smile seemed forced, like he wasn’t nearly as reassured by Dean’s assertion as the tall, gangly one had been. The tall one, on the other hand, was marching forward boldly, his red scarf billowing behind him on the breeze like a cape. It looked almost like he was taller than Sam.

“YOU’RE IN LUCK, HUMANS!” the tall one proclaimed. “YOU SEE BEFORE YOU THE BEST SENTRIES IN ALL OF EAST EBOTT.”

“You mean the _only_ sentries in East Ebott, don’t you?” Gerson interrupted, sounding amused. “Everyone else is still stationed in the Underground.”

The skeleton ignored him and stopped to pose dramatically. “IF A WITNESS STATEMENT IS WHAT YOU NEED, A WITNESS STATEMENT YOU SHALL HAVE! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT YOU GAIN ALL THE INFORMATION YOU REQUIRE.”

“actually, it might be good for him,” Sans admitted, ambling up beside Papyrus. “we ran out of crossword books two weeks ago. he’s been dying for a new puzzle to solve.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Uh, thank you. This is one puzzle we could certainly use your help on.”

“Maybe we should talk about it over lunch,” Dean suggested. “Where’s good?”

Sans shrugged. “you like burgers? we could go to grillby’s.”

“Sure. Sounds like a good place for an interrogation.”

“oh, you planning to grill us, then?”

“Who said I’d be the one askin’ questions? Got a feeling you want to rake _me_ over the coals.”

“what makes you think i got a bone to pick with you?”

“You kiddin’? I can see right through you.”

Sam winced, and Papyrus groaned. For all the tension in the air, though, Dean found himself kind of liking Sans already; it was nice to find someone who appreciated fine puns as much as he did.

And it seemed the feeling was mutual, as Sans chuckled. “okay, then, grillby’s it is.”

“UGH, SANS, YOU KNOW I HATE THAT PLACE!” Papyrus objected. “BESIDES, WE HAVE PLENTY OF SPAGHETTI AT HOME.”

“not cooked, we don’t,” Sans countered. “and that’s a good way to get into hot water.”

“Sounds like you don’t need me for this,” Gerson said quietly while the skeletons continued bickering. “So I’d best get on home. If you do need to chat, though, just send someone; everybody knows where I live.”

Dean nodded. “All right. Thank you.”

“What about the bakery?” Sam suggested. “Does the bakery serve lunches?”

“YES!” Papyrus replied at the same time Sans said, “eh, i dunno....”

“Okay,” Sam ventured, “how about a compromise? Papyrus and I can go to Muffet’s while you two go to Grillby’s.”

The lights in Sans’ eye sockets dimmed, and he lowered his voice. “do you really think i’m going to leave papyrus alone with _sam winchester?_ ”

Dean blinked. “What the hell are you—”

“save it, dean. the tuatha de warned us about you two. and once alphys got patched into the human internet, we found photos. it’s not common knowledge around town, but yeah, we know who you are.”

“Look,” Sam stated, “like we told Gerson, we’re here for information. We know the killer’s not one of you. And besides that, we’ll be in public.”

“like you were the last time you ate in st. louis?”

“That wasn’t us,” the Winchesters chorused.

“Those were shape-shifting monsters called Leviathans,” Dean continued. “We were a day’s drive away when the news broke. They were trying to get us back on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. We caught up with them in Iowa; they’re dead.”

Sam grimaced. “That’s twice now you’ve been impersonated in St. Louis.”

“Dude, don’t remind me. That was my favorite diner they shot up, too, and now it’s _closed._ ”

“It’s not like we could go back there even if it weren’t closed.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Sam. They had the best burgers in town.”

Sans still looked skeptical, but Papyrus put a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Please, brother,” he pleaded quietly. “Let me do this. I can call Undyne if it would make you feel better.”

“undyne’s got class right now, bro. and she wants to fight these guys, remember?”

“Sans. Please.”

Sans sighed. “oh, all right, fine. just... promise you’ll call someone if anything happens.”

“I’ll... I’ll call His Majesty. He can leave the school most readily.”

Sans nodded. “okay.”

Sam nodded, too, and turned to Dean. “We’ll meet back... here?”

“Makes sense,” Dean agreed. “Call if anything comes up.”

“Right.”

“COME, THEN, MY NEW HUMAN FRIEND!” Papyrus cried and slapped Sam on the back. “TO MUFFET’S WE GO!”

“Lead on,” Sam replied, doing his best to match Papyrus’ enthusiasm.

Dean and Sans chuckled as Papyrus, who was indeed a good four inches taller than Sam, herded Sam back down the boardwalk toward the bakery. As they watched their brothers go, they drifted to stand side by side. But once Papyrus’ voice faded out with distance, the tension in the air returned.

“If your brother does anything to mine—”

Man and skeleton turned and blinked at each other. That had come out in perfect unison.

“He’s all I’ve _got_ —”

So did that.

“look,” Sans tried again. “papyrus wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Then none of us have anything to worry about, do we?” Dean returned.

“do we? i’ve heard—”

“I don’t care what you’ve heard. Sam’s _not_ going to attack unprovoked. He’s the one who always wants to make friends with monsters—hell, he’s had three different girlfriends who were monsters, at least.”

Sans raised one brow ridge. “oh, really?”

Dean looked down at him for a moment. “Look, you wanna go to Grillby’s or not?”

Sans huffed, but his permanent smile seemed less strained. “this way.”

The conversation paused as Dean followed Sans down the street and into Grillby’s Bar and Grill, the inside of which reminded him of a less-busy Mos Eisley Cantina (or maybe Ten Forward). What looked like the head off a giant stuffed rabbit with spirals for eyes was sitting on one table; it wasn’t until the thing visibly hiccupped that Dean could tell it was alive. The handful of other patrons, presumably all regulars, called various greetings to Sans, and he pushed back his hood and waved to them.

“usual for me, grillbz,” Sans called to the bespectacled fire elemental behind the bar as he led the way to a booth. “for you, deano?”

Dean decided to chance it. “Bacon cheeseburger, extra onions, order of fries, and a Coke,” he said as he took off his overcoat.

The fire elemental—Grillby?—nodded once and set down the glass it was cleaning. How it managed not to set the rag on fire, never mind the tux it was wearing, was beyond Dean.

“not sure if he has bacon,” Sans admitted as they sat down. “but i can vouch for the burgers. best in the underground, still just as good on the surface. way better than the glamburgers at the mtt-brand burger emporium.”

Dean blinked. “ _Glam_ burgers?”

“mettaton’s idea. made with sequins.”

Dean snorted. “David Bowie fan?” When Sans only blinked, he clarified, “Ziggy Stardust?”

“who’s that?”

“You... you’ve never heard of _Ziggy Stardust?!_ ”

“well, mettaton might have, if someone scavenged a record or something out of the dump. we never got a lot of human culture in the underground. some things, yeah, but only what got thrown out. we’re still catching up.”

“So—wait, are you saying... _nobody_ in this town is going to recognize that our aliases are from Led Zeppelin?”

“who?”

Dean took a moment to find his voice again. “ _Wow._ Okay. You guys have literally been living under a rock.”

“lot of us still are. we had five full towns in the underground, and we didn’t have time to build enough cabins for everyone before winter hit. and it’s been a challenge trying to find space that’s level enough to build on. in the world we left, ebott’s a good-sized city—college town. might not have been easy, but we could have found enough places to live there. now?” Sans shook his head. “at least people can visit the surface, even if they can’t move out here yet.”

“Probably safer that way, at least right now. Things are still pretty unsettled since the Apocalypse.”

“yeah, we heard about that. also heard you and your brother made sure it apo _collapsed._ ”

“Now the hard part is keepin’ it that way. If Lucifer gets out again... well, anyway, we’re doin’ everything we can to make sure that can’t happen.”

“sounds like hell.”

Dean sighed. “Not something I can make jokes about, dude. Not anymore.”

Sans’ smile faded a bit. “that look on your face. that’s the face of a man who’s... who’s seen his brother die. more than once.”

“And that? That sounds like the voice of experience.”

Man and skeleton looked at each other for a long moment until a sudden rise in the temperature heralded Grillby’s arrival with Dean’s Coke and a... bottle of ketchup?

“thanks, grillbz,” said Sans, accepting the ketchup.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Dean, accepting his Coke, which was astonishingly still cold. “Hey, uh... Grillby, right? Would you be hiring?”

Grillby tilted his head quizzically.

“I’ve got a friend who really needs a job. War buddy. Got a lot of experience—used to work at a diner in Louisiana. And I think he’d fit in here pretty well. He’s... he’s a vampire. But he’s tryin’ to stay straight,” Dean added quickly. “He raids blood banks and stuff. He doesn’t _want_ to kill. Maybe a place like this is just what he needs.”

Grillby and Sans looked at each other. “he’ll... think about it, right?” Sans answered.

Grillby nodded and left.

“war buddy, huh?” Sans continued, popping the cap off the ketchup bottle as if it were a beer bottle. “how’d that happen?” He took a swig.

“Hunting accident,” Dean replied. “I got sent to Purgatory, which is basically the afterlife for monsters. Benny knew where there was an escape hatch for humans, so we made a deal. He helped me get to it, and I helped him get out.”

Sans looked startled. “monsters have an _afterlife_ here?!”

“Yeah. Not a good one; it’s pretty much 24/7 combat. But it exists.”

“huh. wow. i wonder... i mean, back... in our universe, or at least in the underground, monster souls... just disintegrated, and so did the body. just poof, dust. if there’s an afterlife, if we can _get_ to it....”

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry to find out, dude. Like I said, it ain’t pretty.”

Sans ran a hand over his face. “yeah, yeah, i hear you. what i mean is... it could give monsters hope, knowing they’d see each other again, knowing they didn’t have to fight so hard to stay in this world. hell of a lot better than some of the things we’ve tried to bring back monsters who ‘fell down.’”

Dean sighed. “You want hope, you’re talkin’ to the wrong guy.”

“and i hear _that_ , too.” Sans paused. “dean, when did you get back from purgatory?”

“’Bout six months ago.”

“and how long were you there?”

“A year and change. Mid-May to late July.”*

“so if you returned in july of 2012 and were sent there in may of 2011, how was it that you were fighting leviathans in iowa in september of 2011?”

Dean hesitated. “Look, man, my sense of time is shot to hell. I mean, it was bad enough spending forty years Downstairs and coming back to find out I’d been gone four months. Then while Sam was... was gone, I spent a year with my last girlfriend, but somehow I went to sleep on New Year’s Eve of 2010 and woke up New Year’s Day to find it was still 2010. Or something. I go to Purgatory in 2012, spend a year, and come back to find it’s still 2012? I _roll with it._ ”

Sans sat back. “i knew it. i knew there was something wrong with space-time in this world.”

“What? How?”

“ever been caught in a time loop before?”

“And remembered it, no. Sam does. Trickster with a mistaken understanding of how to help put us in one, killed me over a hundred times and made Sam watch. Then Sam spent six months trying to find him again and make him undo it all.”

Sans took a long pull on his ketchup bottle. “never—not in my wildest dreams or worst nightmares—did i ever think i’d find someone who could understand, who’d been there. and to find that person’s a human... a _hunter!_ ” He laughed bitterly and took another drink.

“Somethin’ single you out, make sure you remembered?”

Sans shook his head. “nah. think it may be a side effect of my powers—i can teleport, for one thing.” He paused, then ran a hand over his face again. “dunno why i just admitted that.”

“I wondered, though. Waitress at the diner never saw you arrive or leave. Another friend of mine pulls the same trick.”

“what’s he?”

“Angel.”

“wow.” Sans took a deep breath. “diner. right. so you know i’ve been in town since halloween.”

“Yup. Glad you decided not to pro _crust_ inate on addressing that.”

“heh, well, it’d be pretty _crumb_ y of me not to come clean.”

“Good taste, though. Pie?”

“pie. tori’s favorite thing to bake. i gotta return the favor somehow.”

“Yeah, good plan. Tori’s your girlfriend?”

“yup. toriel, that’s her full name. she’s a boss monster. she, uh... she used to be queen. then—well, it’s a long story, but when she and asgore split up, she moved out to the ruins, and... see, there’s this door between the ruins and snowdin forest, where paps and i used to patrol. i’d go there to practice my knock-knock jokes. and one day she answered.”

Dean nodded. “I get you.”

“tibia-nest, i was pretty bonely out there myself. but i never thought... never really let myself hope... anyway, i-it was kind of a shock to find out who she was, and it was a huge shock to find out she felt the same way about me. we’re still trying to figure things out, but... yeah. pie. but that’s the only reason i’ve gone into ebott since halloween, i swear!”

“I believe you.”

Sans blinked. “you... you do?”

“Like we said, we know the killer’s not one of you. One of the vics had a security system with video monitoring. We got a still from it. Only trouble is, no one in town can identify the perp.” Dean reached into his jacket, pulled out the picture, and slid it across the table. “Ever seen this kid?”

The lights in Sans’ eye sockets went out entirely, and he stared silently at the image for a long moment.

“C’mon, man, throw me a bone here.”

Sans was apparently too shocked to take the bait. Instead, he heaved a sigh that rattled his ribcage, closed his eye sockets, and pinched the bone between them like a human would pinch the bridge of his nose. “that’s frisk.”

“Frisk?”

Sans nodded. “frisk was the last human to fall into the underground. still lives with tori. i... i was so sure after this last loop that... that i’d been wrong, i’d misremembered, that the kid wasn’t a killer....”

“Frisk’s not the one doing the killing.”

Sans’ eye sockets popped open, lights back in place and widened in shock, and he sat up straighter. “ _what?!_ ”

“Look.” Dean pointed to the spot on Frisk’s neck that he’d noticed on the video. “That’s not hair or a shadow. That’s ectoplasm. Classic sign of ghost possession.”

“ _possession...._ ” Sans looked up and away, like he was thinking.

“Like I said, we’re after a vengeful spirit, a _human’s_ ghost. So who’s riding Frisk?”

Sans drummed his phalanges on the table top for a moment. Then his eye lights went out again for a split second before his left eye blazed cyan and he snarled, “chara.”

* * *

* This really is only a slight fudge—to make it work with “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” assume that Channing is taking summer classes, since the demon has to keep up appearances despite attending Channing’s safety school (which could in fact be Notre Dame!).


	4. Chapter 3: Past and Present

“Ahuhuhu! What’s the matter, dearie?”

Sam looked up from his menu, which ran the gamut from spider doughnuts to spider tarts, at the giant purple spider who was using four of her six hands to pour tea for him and for Papyrus at the same time while watching him with all five eyes. “Uh, nothing,” he lied as politely as he could. “Just gonna need a few minutes to decide.”

“I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!” Papyrus stated. “EVERYTHING LOOKS TEMPTING TODAY, MUFFET!”

“And smells amazing,” Sam added, which wasn’t a lie. He almost wished he hadn’t seen the menu.

Muffet used one of her free hands to cover her fanged smile as she giggled again, making her black pigtails bounce. Then she slid the now-filled cups of tea to her two customers. “Well, then, take your time! I have plenty of wares, and they’re all piping hot!” Then a buzzer sounded in the kitchen, and she hurried off to deal with it.

Sam looked back down at the menu and asked through his teeth, “Are there really....”

“SPIDERS IN EVERYTHING,” Papyrus confirmed in something approaching a stage whisper. “BUT YOU CAN’T TASTE THEM.”

“It’s more the principle of the thing. I don’t mind spiders much when they’re alive, but we don’t normally eat them.”

“THE BREAD USUALLY DOESN’T HAVE QUITE SO MANY SPIDERS IN IT, IF YOU WANT TO TRY A SANDWICH.”

That suddenly reminded Sam of a Monty Python sketch involving rat tart, which made eating spiders seem far more appealing. “Good idea. Thanks.”

“I APOLOGIZE IF I WAS RUDE CONCERNING GRILLBY’S,” Papyrus continued at a more conversational volume. “IT’S JUST THAT SANS EATS THERE ALL THE TIME, EVEN WHEN HE KNOWS I’M COOKING. AND... WELL, HE DOESN’T ONLY GO THERE FOR THE FOOD, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”

“Yeeeah,” Sam replied. “Dean gets the same way sometimes.” And so did Sam, if he were honest—one of the perils of being raised by a functional alcoholic was developing the same terrible coping mechanisms—but he wasn’t going to admit that to someone like Papyrus, especially since the skeleton seemed to be in a mood to commiserate over brothers who made bad life choices.

“I NOTICED THAT THEY SHARE A SIMILAR SENSE OF HUMOR.”

“If you can call it that. He thinks he’s hilarious.”

“YES! AND DOES HE DO THINGS ON PURPOSE TO ANNOY YOU?”

“I think _all_ big brothers do that.”

“NYEH-HEH! I DOUBT HE IS AS MUCH OF A LAZYBONES AS SANS IS, THOUGH.”

“Eh, depends. He spends a lot of his spare time working on his car.” Sam decided not to mention Dean’s more... adult pursuits; Papyrus seemed pretty innocent, though Sam couldn’t quite tell how old he really was. “Especially when the job starts getting to him. Couple of times he’s had to rebuild her from the frame up, and it was like... well, no, he actually _said_ once that there were so many bad things happening at the time that he couldn’t fix that he was going to focus on the car because it was the one thing he knew he could fix.”

Papyrus looked a little startled, then looked down at his menu with a worried air. If he’d had lips, he probably would have bitten the lower one. “DO YOU SEE... A LOT OF SCARY THINGS WITH YOUR WORK?”

“More than most people. But that’s why we do it—so other people don’t have to. We save lives.”

Papyrus looked up again, plainly uneasy; he had an oddly expressive face for a skeleton. “DO YOU THINK WE’RE SCARY?”

“Not... really? I mean, I’m having lunch with you, aren’t I? And even if the menu’s... not what I’m used to, it’s still better than the stuff Leviathans were putting in the food supply to try to make people too fat and stupid to realize they were being preyed upon. We had to go vegetarian for a while in self-defense. Dean _hated_ it.”

Papyrus’ eyes had grown saucer-wide, but before he could respond, Muffet came back to take their orders. Sam took Papyrus’ suggestion and ordered a club sandwich; that seemed to break Papyrus’ shock enough that he could order cinnamon buns for himself.

“But no, honestly,” Sam continued as Muffet went back to the kitchen again. “After facing down some of the most evil creatures in the universe... well, I still have trouble with clowns. But talking skeletons? That’s just Friday.”

“NYEH-HEH-HEH! WELL, I FOR ONE AM GLAD TO HEAR IT! I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS, BUT OF COURSE ONE DOES OCCASIONALLY HAVE TO WORK PAST ASSUMPTIONS BASED ON APPEARANCE.”

“Boy, do I know how that goes. We moved around all the time when I was growing up, and we didn’t have much, so I was always the new kid, always in weird clothes....”

“YES, BUT EVENTUALLY, OTHERS LEARN TO APPRECIATE OUR GREATNESS, CORRECT?”

Sam couldn’t help smiling. “The people who matter do, anyway.”

“AND THE REST STILL HAVE TIME TO SEE! NYEH-HEH!”

The conversation paused again as Muffet delivered the food and a cadre of smaller spiders delivered a bag of ‘chisps’ (!) that had fallen from Sam’s plate en route. Sam thanked them all and manfully tucked into his sandwich, deciding to pretend that the little black things on the bread’s crust were poppy seeds.

Papyrus made short work of one cinnamon bun, but then he stopped and sighed heavily. “HUMAN SAM, I DON’T KNOW WHY I FEEL I SHOULD TELL YOU THIS, BUT... I AM WORRIED ABOUT SANS.”

“Oh? Why?”

“PERHAPS I SHOULD BEGIN BY EXPLAINING THAT WE WERE NOT ALWAYS ASSIGNED TO PROTECT EAST EBOTT. I WANTED TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD, YOU SEE, BUT I HADN’T YET ADVANCED BEYOND THE RANK OF SENTRY. I JOINED BECAUSE I WANTED TO HELP MY FELLOW MONSTERS AND PROTECT KING ASGORE.” Papyrus paused. “SANS... I DON’T KNOW WHY SANS JOINED. MAYBE HE JUST DIDN’T WANT ME TO BE LONELY.”

Sam suspected there was far more to it than that, but all he said was, “I see.”

“UNDYNE WAS CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD—WE DON’T HAVE IT ANYMORE NOW THAT WE’RE HERE—AND SHE ASSIGNED SANS AND ME TO PATROL IN SNOWDIN FOREST. WE WERE TO CAPTURE ANY HUMANS WHO CAME OUT OF THE RUINS AND HAND THEM OVER TO HER. THE ONLY ONE WHO EVER SHOWED UP WAS FRISK, WHO TURNED OUT TO BE A VERY NICE PERSON AND A VERY GOOD FRIEND.”

“Well, that’s... that’s good, I guess.” Sam wasn’t sure where this was going.

“BUT UNTIL FRISK SHOWED UP, OUR PATROL AREA WAS REALLY PRETTY BORING. I MADE MY ROUNDS AND SET UP PUZZLE TRAPS, AND SANS... WELL, I **THOUGHT** SANS SLEPT A LOT. BUT HE ALWAYS GAVE WEIRD EXCUSES FOR NOT DOING THINGS, LIKE, ‘OH, PAPYRUS, IT DOESN’T MATTER, IT WON’T BE THERE TOMORROW.’ AND HE SAYS STRANGE THINGS TO FRISK SOMETIMES, AND TO ALPHYS, TOO. AND AFTER WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT DEAN... I... I WONDER IF SANS SAW SOMETHING SCARY AND DOESN’T WANT ME TO KNOW ABOUT IT.”

“Huh.” Sam wiped his hands, narrowly missing a crumb-hunting spider, and reached into his jacket. “Maybe it has something to do with this.” He pulled out the photo and passed it to Papyrus.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but Sam could have sworn Papyrus actually blanched.

* * *

“don’t ask me how i know this,” Sans began, leaning forward and lowering his voice, “because i genuinely don’t remember where i heard the story. we might have to ask frisk or tori to confirm it.”

“Roger that,” Dean replied.

“i also can’t be certain of the timeline because there were so many loops and so many anomalies that resulted. like you, i’m not even sure what year it’s supposed to be.”

“Gotcha.”

“gerson already told you about the barrier. some time ago—before my time, apparently—a child named chara fell through it. first human anyone had seen in centuries. chara was about the same age as tori and asgore’s son asriel, and they got along well. plus, there was supposedly a prophecy that an angel would fall into the underground and free the monsters from the barrier, and everyone thought at the time that chara was that angel. so tori and asgore basically adopted her, and everything was hunky dory... for a while.”

“But Chara was no angel.”

“exactly. there was some sort of mishap with the kids trying to make asgore a butterscotch pie and putting in buttercups instead of cups of butter.”

Dean frowned. “Buttercups?! Buttercups are poisonous!”

“which no one knew until they tried to eat the pie. asgore got sick. chara got sicker, and nobody could figure out what to do about it. finally, since chara was about to die anyway, she convinced asriel to absorb her soul and carry her body back to the human village—a monster who’d absorbed a human soul could pass through the barrier.”

The Winchesters had dealt with far too much traffic in souls for Dean to think this story was heading anywhere remotely like a happy ending.

“asriel was only too willing to grant his best friend’s last request. but once he got outside, the humans assumed he’d killed chara and attacked him. he made it back into the underground before he died, still carrying chara’s body. asgore was furious and decided to take the souls of the next seven humans to fall into the underground in order to destroy the barrier and get his revenge for asriel’s death. he was even willing to kill children if that was what it took.”

Dean grimaced, both because of what Asgore had done and because the whole thing was beginning to sound like a deliberate plot on Chara’s part. “That why Toriel left him?”

“yeah. don’t get me wrong; asgore’s not a bad guy on balance. he’s always been nice to paps and gave alphys a shot when most people couldn’t see past her stammer and her obsession with anime. and he practically adopted undyne. but i’ve got a feeling you know better than most what revenge can do to even nice, gentle people.”

“Oh, _hell_ yeah.” It wasn’t the time or place to tell those stories, but Dean did have a million of them, the case of his own family not the least.

“anyway, tori took chara’s body and buried it in the ruins in the spot where she’d originally fallen. apparently, that’s precisely where frisk fell, too.”

Dean raised his chin. “Disturbing the grave can cause the ghost to become active even after a long dormancy. And if a human couldn’t get out of the Underground without a monster’s soul, her soul was probably still tied to her remains, at least until she latched onto Frisk.”

“we’ve got a few ghost-monsters in the underground. mettaton’s one of ’em; alphys built him a body to possess. that’s what brought her to asgore’s attention, actually. can human ghosts do that?”

“Not exactly. They can be tied to an object and unable to move beyond a certain distance away from it, but it takes a lot of concentration or a lot of rage even to move a piece of paper. But they can possess another human, especially once they’ve gone vengeful. May have to have the object they’re tied to nearby. And the telltale sign?” Dean reached across the table and tapped the picture. “Ectoplasm coming out the ear.”

Sans rubbed the back of his skull. “don’t remember ever seeing that before, but it may not have happened, or only on a loop i’ve forgotten, or not at all until we got here. i’ve heard a few of the neighbors talking about subtle changes in their magic since the barrier fell, and we can eat human food without more than a dash of magic added—before, it would have gone right through us.”

“I was wondering how that worked. How’d you find out, trial and error?”

“nah, tori tried it first with frisk. i just....”

“... didn’t have the guts,” Dean chorused with him. “Yeah, I saw that one coming.”

Just then, Grillby delivered their burgers, which were every bit as good as Sans had claimed, and the conversation turned to the intricacies of diner food and such exotic menu options as breakfast tacos and shrimp on grits. And from there it turned to the problems of keeping little brothers fed and out of trouble, which revealed that the pair of them had a whole lot more in common than just liking the same kinds of jokes.

“Getting back to the problem at hand,” Dean finally said after Grillby cleared away their plates. “Did anything happen around New Year’s that could have set Chara off?”

Sans leaned back and considered. “not that i can think of. but tori has been pretty worried about frisk the last week or two, although she hasn’t said why. frisk’s supposed to spend the weekend with us; i’m sure paps would love for you and sam to come for supper, and you could talk to the kid then.”

“Good idea. Thanks. What bothers me, though, is the way Chara’s behaving at the crime scenes. She’s taking care not to let Frisk get hurt, but she’s also doing things like looking straight at security cameras, like she wants to get caught. Sounds like she was trying to provoke a war between monsters and humans when she poisoned herself. This could be more of the same, if she wants a _hunter_ to come after her. Question is... does she even know about hunters?”

* * *

“IT’S POSSIBLE,” Papyrus replied when Sam asked the same question. He hadn’t remembered any specific stories about the humans who had fallen into the Underground before Frisk, but he’d accepted Sam’s explanation of the signs that one of them had ducked his or her Reaper after the Barrier fell and was now up to no good. “FRISK WAS SLEEPING NEARBY WHEN HIS MAJESTY TOLD US ABOUT HUNTERS. HE EVEN TOLD US YOU WERE THE ONLY ONES WHO WERE LIKELY TO BE ABLE TO FIND US.”

“Because Dean’s fae-touched?”

“RIGHT. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, BY THE WAY?”

Sam sighed—there were some awkward memories attached to that incident, thanks to the fact that he’d been soulless at the time. “We had a case a couple of years ago where Dean was captured by a group of fairies who were abducting first-born sons. He fought back until they let him go, but after that he could see them even when I couldn’t. And he’s immune to whatever glamour the Tuatha De used to hide this place—he could see it from town, but I couldn’t see it until we drove past the welcome sign.”

Papyrus nodded. “HIS MAJESTY WAS AFRAID THAT WOULD HAPPEN. WE ALL AGREED THAT WE NEEDED TO KEEP OURSELVES HIDDEN JUST IN CASE. BUT IF THE GHOST IS TIED TO SOMETHING THAT FRISK WAS CARRYING....”

“It probably overheard. Which means it’s using Frisk to get to us, trying to provoke us to attack you.”

“AND WHEN IT FINDS OUT THAT YOU’RE NOT GOING TO, IT MAY DO SOMETHING WORSE TO FRISK!”

“Exactly. So we need to find the object, get it away from Frisk, and destroy it before the ghost can do anything else.”

“DESTROY IT?! BUT CAN’T WE HELP THE POOR GHOST UNDERSTAND WHAT IT’S DOING?”

“Destroying the object _does_ help the ghost. Even if we can convince it to stop, it probably won’t be able to let go on its own. But if we destroy the object, it will be able to move on to the afterlife.” Sam decided not to add that talking the ghost down almost never worked once it had gone vengeful—in fact, he could count the exceptions he’d encountered on one hand.

But Papyrus seemed to accept the explanation as it stood, just as Sam had when Dean had used it on him many years ago. “OH, I SEE. WELL, FRISK WILL BE AT SCHOOL UNTIL SOMETIME AFTER 5; HER MAJESTY HAS STARTED A CLUB FOR TEACHING THE CHILDREN ABOUT HUMAN CULTURE, AND FRISK IS HER ASSISTANT. BUT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO COME FOR SUPPER, SINCE FRISK IS SPENDING THE WEEKEND WITH US.”

Sam nodded. “The ghost’s trying to keep its activities hidden from Her Majesty, so there’s not much risk of anything happening while Frisk’s at school. We can wait for supper.” He paused. “Uh, that is, if you don’t mind—”

“OH, NO, WE’D LOVE FOR YOU TO JOIN US! WELL, AT LEAST I WOULD. DO YOU LIKE SPAGHETTI?”

“Love it. Sounds awesome.”

That was apparently exactly the right thing to say, as Papyrus brightened considerably. “NYEH-HEH-HEH! I TOLD SANS YOU WOULD! AND I MAKE EXCELLENT SPAGHETTI, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF. EVEN FRISK SAYS I’M IMPROVING!”

Sam had sudden misgivings about the quality of Papyrus’ cooking, but he stifled them and looked at his watch. “It’s almost 2. That gives us some time to plan.”

A squad of spiders had carried Papyrus’ plate away when it became clear that he’d be too distraught over what was happening to Frisk to finish his buns. Now they returned with a take-out box. Papyrus accepted it gratefully and handed the spiders several gold coins in payment, then called a farewell to Muffet and ushered Sam outside. Woshua was still scrubbing merrily at the now-sparkling Impala—using a toothbrush to get the dirt out from between the tire treads, it looked like—but neither Sans nor Dean was anywhere in sight.

Sam checked his phone and found neither missed calls nor texts. “Guess they’re still at Grillby’s.”

Papyrus grimaced. “IS THERE ANYONE ELSE YOU NEED TO TALK TO BEFORE WE GO THERE?”

“Y’know, actually... do you know if anything weird was happening _before_ New Year’s? The ghost may have waited this long to start attacking humans because it was adjusting to being in this universe, but there’s a chance it would have started with smaller things to test its power.”

“I HAVEN’T RECEIVED ANY REPORTS, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN NO ONE NOTICED ANYTHING. AND ALPHYS DOES HAVE SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS AROUND TOWN; SHE’S NO LONGER THE ROYAL SCIENTIST, BUT SHE STILL HELPS US SENTRIES WITH TECHNOLOGICAL STUFF. THE CAMERAS MAY HAVE RECORDED SOMETHING. IF THEY DID, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL FIND OUT FOR YOU! NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!”

“Awesome, thanks. You start with Alphys; I’ll check with the Ebott police to see if anything’s been reported to them.”

Papyrus nodded and got out his own phone, and Sam ducked back inside the bakery where it was both warmer and quieter to make his call.

* * *

Sans had been listening intently as Dean expounded on the properties of ghosts and the methods for dealing with them, but suddenly he slumped back in his seat with a huff, and the lights in his eye sockets dimmed almost to the point of going out.

“Am I _boring_ you?” Dean jabbed.

“i don’t see you holding a drill,” Sans jabbed back bitterly. “hey, grillbz?”

“You need another ketchup like you need a hole in the head, dude.”

“then i’ll upgrade.”

“Man, I am the _last_ person who should be lecturing others on sobriety—”

“you’re the last person who _did._ ”

“What the hell is bothering you? And don’t say ‘nothing’—I know that game. I’ve played it myself.”

“look, it doesn’t matter, all right? none of this matters. even if... if we get rid of chara... we’re due for a reset any day now. and when it happens, we’ll be back in the underground, and none of this will have happened, and everything will go back the way it was.”

“That won’t happen.”

“how do you know?”

“Because _it doesn’t work that way here_.”

“what makes you so sure?”

“We’ve tried. And every time we go back in time and try to change things, we fail. Hell, we usually end up causing the event we were trying to stop. And the one time we know someone managed to change something major, the Fates forced him to change it back. Not that I buy the idea that the future’s predetermined; we’ve thwarted our so-called destiny too often for that. But the past is what it is, and we can’t change it.”

Sans shook his head. “i wish i could believe that. that any timeline is fixed. that anything i do even matters. i just... i gave up on making a difference a long time ago.”

“Dude, I have _been_ there. You think you’ve had it bad trying to save all your friends? Try knowing the fate of _six billion people_ depends on you and your brother and feeling like you’re not good enough, like you can’t stop the world from offing itself no matter how hard you try. Every time you stop one catastrophe, something else goes wrong. Hell, I can’t even save my own family. Believe me, I’ve _tried_ to quit. To numb the pain, to drown the nightmares. To let the world dive off the cliff if it wants to. To let myself die.”

“let me guess. sam won’t let you.”

“And if it’s not Sam, it’s somebody else. See, guys like us, we don’t get to give up. Nobody cares if we’re broken, for one thing. For another... even if we do give up and get out, there’s always _something_ gunnin’ for us. So like a friend of mine said, you gotta find your motivation somewhere, whether it’s ‘love or spite or a ten-dollar bet.’ And you gotta always keep fighting. Frisk, Papyrus, Toriel... they’re counting on you.”

The unfamiliar song that had been playing on the jukebox came to an end as Sans sighed and ran a hand over his face. Then the door opened with a chime—and the jukebox switched over to “Carry On, Wayward Son.” Sans sat up straighter in surprise, and every monster in the room stared at the jukebox.

“WOWIE!” Papyrus exclaimed as the opening instrumental riff began. “I’VE NEVER HEARD THIS SONG BEFORE!”

Sam nudged his way past the tall skeleton and walked over to Sans and Dean’s booth. “Hey,” he said as he approached the table. “How’s it going?”

Dean held up a finger to his mouth and scooted over to let Sam sit down beside him. There would be time to catch up after the song. Right now, Sans needed a shot of Kansas encouragement—and honestly, so did Dean.


	5. Chapter 4: Frisk and Chara

“Alphys checked all the camera feeds and didn’t find anything,” Sam reported as the two pairs of brothers left Grillby’s. “The few shots of Frisk she did find out of the ordinary could have been passed off as sleepwalking. But I called Walsh, and he said there’d been a few complaints of small animal mutilation outside of town in November and December—that’s the county’s jurisdiction, but because the damage looked like it had been caused by a knife, the reports got forwarded to Angela. And get this: the last one before New Year’s was a black cat apparently killed on the solstice.”

Dean hissed. “Wouldn’t have thought someone could get away with that level of mojo this close to a Seelie court.”

“For this stuff to be found, it’d have to be outside the glamour field. Walsh said he’d map the incidents for us to be sure. But of course, since it’s a question of magic... we do have a couple of experts we could ask.”

The Winchesters turned as one to the skeletons.

“this sounds like _work_ ,” Sans objected.

“SANS!” Papyrus chided. “THE SAFETY OF ALL MONSTERKIND DEPENDS ON IT!”

“Dude, all you have to do is look at a map,” Dean said. “We’ll drive.”

Papyrus gasped, and Dean could almost have sworn he got literal stars in his eyes. “A RIDE IN A REAL MUSCLE CAR?! **WOWIE!!!** ”

Sans’ smile turned fond. “heh. paps loves cars. and we don’t have any up here—the tuatha de conjured up some vans for the halloween shopping trip, but we’d probably have to go to salmon or someplace even farther afield to get to a car dealership.”

“WILL YOU COME WITH US, THEN?”

“eh, all right. just for you, bro.”

“YAY! THANK YOU, SANS!”

“we’ll need disguises, though.”

“Groucho glasses do not count,” Sam stated.

“aw, c’mon!”

“You have no appreciation for the classics, Sam,” Dean agreed.

Sam snorted. “No. I’ve got a better idea.”

So it was that ten minutes later, two ersatz Feds walked into the Ebott Police Department followed by two figures whose hands were hidden by gloves and whose faces were covered by ski masks and mirrored goggles. When the latter didn’t remove even their goggles once they were inside, the desk officer, a lady with a nametag that read _O’Brien_ , raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Skin condition,” Dean deadpanned.

Sans coughed loudly to warn Papyrus not to groan.

Sam held up a hand. “These gentlemen have agreed to help us on condition of anonymity. They’re not suspects, but... well, let’s just say it’s a very insular community.”

“Oh, right, the preppers!” O’Brien replied. “How’d you even find them?”

Sam smiled and shook his head. “That’s classified.”

“Really? Wow. Okay, well, here’s Jerry’s report from this morning, and here’s the map Tom said you’d be coming for.” O’Brien handed a folder and a map to Sam. “Did you want to go over them here?”

“If you don’t mind, yeah. Did the crime scene team find anything else at Mrs. Sullivan’s house?”

“Not that I know of, but we probably won’t get their report until Monday. I’d ask the guys if they’ve heard, but Jerry’s out doing the press circuit, and Tom’s gone to check on Angela. No idea when they’ll be back.”

Dean nodded. “Gotcha. You guys have a conference room or something?”

“No, but you can use the break room. It’s—”

“We know where it is, thanks.”

“Oh, okay. Did you... need me to call Tom or anything?”

“No, thank you,” Sam replied. “We probably won’t be here for more than a few minutes. Just need to make sure the evidence supports our current theory before we go out to the mine to chase down our best lead.”

O’Brien paled. “The mine?!”

“Can you think of a better place for a killer to hide?” Dean asked.

“Well, no, but... but... it’s _dangerous_ out there!”

“All the more reason for us to get out there before the kid falls down a shaft or gets caught in a cave-in, right?”

“FEAR NOT, OFFICER O’BRIEN!” Papyrus chimed in. “WE HAVE PROMISED THESE AGENTS ALL THE ASSISTANCE THEY MAY REQUIRE. NEITHER THEY NOR THE CHILD SHALL COME TO HARM, OR MY NAME—”

“is mud,” Sans interrupted pointedly. “but ’ey. as long as we’ve lived underground, what’s a little spelunking?”

Papyrus confined himself to a groan, which was really more to give the impression that Sans had made a pun.

“Er, right, okay,” said O’Brien, eyeing Sans skeptically before turning back to Dean. “If you’re sure....”

Dean nodded. “We trust ’em. We have experience of our own. And we’ve got your number if we discover we’ll need backup.”

“Thanks for your concern, though,” Sam added and turned to the skeletons. “Gentlemen, shall we?”

“break room, huh?” Sans murmured as they reached the room in question. “smells more like _heart_ break.”

“Yeah,” Dean replied and closed the door behind them. “The last victim was the mother of the police chief—that’s the Angela we were talking about.”

“OH NO!” cried Papyrus. “IS SHE OKAY?”

“No, but the best way for us to help her is to make sure this ghost won’t kill anyone else.” Sans had signaled earlier that they shouldn’t mention Chara’s name around Papyrus, so Dean was following suit.

Sam, who had started skimming the report as they walked, suddenly whistled. “They forgot to mention _that_ earlier.”

“What?”

“Mrs. Sullivan still had a landline and no cell phone, but the line into the house was cut—less than a minute _after_ she placed a call to Angela about the window breaking. Looks like Angela wasn’t up to filling out her own report, but Hennessy got a witness statement from her; she was just about to tell her mom not to go downstairs when the line went dead. She was first on the scene five minutes later, but by then it was too late.”

Papyrus gasped deeply. “BUT... WHY WOULD ANYONE DO SOMETHING SO... SO **CRUEL**?”

“Lots of reasons, and all of them bad,” Dean replied. “Let’s see that map, Sammy.”

Still reading, Sam handed the map to Dean, who spread it out on the table while the skeletons pushed back their goggles. The marks appeared in seemingly random places ranging from southeast of town to near the Salmon River west of town; the only pattern clear on the surface was that the later incidents were further from the mountain. But Sans confirmed that even the closest ones were all outside the glamour field, and Papyrus noticed that they were also well away from paths the Tuatha De used and areas where they reveled.

“That can’t be a coincidence,” Dean concluded. “So now I’m really wondering about that black cat. What’s she calling—Unseelie, goddess, demon?”

Papyrus shivered audibly at that last.

“What?”

“I DON’T KNOW,” Papyrus confessed. “IT’S JUST... WHEN HIS MAJESTY WAS TELLING US ABOUT THE CREATURES IN THIS WORLD AND MENTIONED DEMONS....”

“it gave us both the creeps,” Sans finished. “makes me think the ghost was listening in and already thinks of itself as a demon.”

“THE DEMON THAT COMES WHEN PEOPLE CALL ITS NAME.” Papyrus paused, somehow managing to look disturbed despite the mask. “NOW, WHERE DID THAT PHRASE COME FROM?”

“i’m not sure, but... it sounds like the sort of thing i hear in my nightmares.”

“Not sure it matters in the long run what she’s calling,” Sam answered Dean’s question. “The main thing is, she’s after power, and she’s trying to start a war. And Frisk is trapped in the middle of it all.”

Dean hummed in agreement. “Yeah, poor Frisk. Possession’s bad enough anyway, but now the kid won’t ever be able to come into town without a serious disguise.”

Papyrus let out a rib-rattling sigh. “AND FRISK WAS SUPPOSED TO BE OUR AMBASSADOR TO HUMANS.”

Sans raised a brow ridge. “what, is ‘evil twin’ not a valid excuse?”

Sam shrugged. “We could suggest it to Angela. No one in town knows that Frisk _doesn’t_ have an evil twin; it might fly better here than most places.”

“But first,” said Dean, folding up the map, “we gotta get rid of that ghost.”

Sam nodded once and opened the door. “Y’know, there’s one thing I don’t get,” he said, his voice pitched to carry down the hall. “Hennessy said there was no neopagan activity in the area, nothing out of the ordinary happening before the first murder. But he had to know about those animal mutilations, especially the cat. Is he trying to cover for someone?”

“Ooh, I can answer that question!” O’Brien called and came around the corner just as Dean ushered the skeletons, goggles back in place, out of the room. “Jerry’s folks own the best hotel in town, and they’re always worried about attracting the wrong kind of tourist. Plus, the old-timers say the Hennessys have had dealings with the Sidhe, even back in Ireland—in fact, there’s one legend that says the Hennessys brought the Gentry with them when they moved here.” She paused, then huffed with a smile. “Probably sounds pretty weird to an outsider, but I don’t think he was, like, deliberately trying to impede your investigation or anything.”

“Not that weird,” Dean admitted.

“Speaking of the hotel,” Sam continued, “where is it? We should get a room before we head up to the mine.”

“Yeah, as much as this suit cost, there’s no way I’m gonna go searching through caves in it.” It hadn’t really—they’d scrounged enough to fund a trip to a more upscale resale shop that was having a great sale—but it had still cost more than the cheapo suits they’d been getting from Goodwill since Dean had been old enough to pass for a Fed.

“Good idea,” O’Brien agreed. “No telling what’s up there.” She gave them directions, and they thanked her, returned the map and all the files, and left.

Papyrus managed to wait until they were outside to say, “YOU WOULD BE VERY WELCOME TO STAY WITH US, YOU KNOW.”

Dean shook his head. “Thanks, but it’ll look better for us to stay here in town. Plus, if this goes the way we think it will, Frisk’s gonna need your undivided attention. We’d only be in the way.”

“IT WON’T **HURT** FRISK, WILL IT?!”

“It shouldn’t, not physically. But if the kid has any idea what’s been going on... well, like I said, possession’s pretty traumatic on its own.”

“Even if Frisk wasn’t aware during the murders, just knowing what happened will be bad enough,” Sam added. “It takes a lot of love and support to recover from something like that.” He looked at Dean, who dreaded what was about to come next. But Sam suddenly smiled a little, and his eyes went soft. “I wouldn’t have made it without my family.”

Dean smiled back. “And family don’t end with blood.”

“AH, OF COURSE!” Papyrus cried. “AND FRISK HAS NOT ONLY HER MAJESTY, UNDYNE AND ALPHYS, AND THE GREAT PAPYRUS, BUT ALSO THE WORLD’S BEST DUNKLE! NYEH-HEH-HEH!”

Sans ducked his head and somehow managed to blush bright blue _through_ the mask. “ah, c’mon, paps.”

“YOU’RE THE BEST BROTHER EVER, SANS, AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT! IT’S ONLY NATURAL THAT YOU’D BE A GREAT DUNKLE TO FRISK, TOO.”

“Well, I’d have to dispute that,” Sam declared, face straight but eyes sparkling. “But I don’t know whether I should fight you or Dean should fight Sans.”

“Nobody’s fighting anybody right now,” Dean stated with mock seriousness. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” As he opened the Impala’s back door for Sans, however, he had to ask: “ _Dunkle?_ ”

“frisk’s term,” Sans replied. “i’d explain, but i figure you’d kill me if i got your suit wet.”

“In this weather?”

“good point.”

And suddenly Dean found himself on the receiving end of a miniature avalanche, as if half the snow on the station’s roof were being dumped on him at once.

“get dunked on, winchester!” Sans crowed as Sam and Papyrus howled with laughter—loud enough, hopefully, that O’Brien hadn’t heard Sans’ slip.

Dean made a show of shaking off the snow and grumbling all the way to the hotel just to disguise the fact that the prank had suddenly made him miss a certain Trickster archangel who was currently presumed dead.

The skeletons mostly stayed out of the way as the Winchesters got checked in and changed out of their Fed suits into their normal hunting clothes. But Dean was still in the bathroom when an unfamiliar ringtone sounded, and he could barely make out Sans’ voice answering.

“no, that’s fine,” Sans was saying as Dean came out. “we’re running some errands right now, but we’ll be home in a few minutes. ... okay, great. thanks, undyne.”

“IS SOMETHING WRONG, BROTHER?” Papyrus asked as Sans hung up.

“i dunno. asgore asked tori to meet him at grillby’s. and whatever it’s about is urgent enough that tori’s canceled the club meeting and asked undyne to bring frisk to our place.”

“WE’D BETTER HEAD BACK, THEN. SCHOOL SHOULD BE LETTING OUT IN A FEW MINUTES.”

“We’re ready,” Sam agreed. “Let’s go.”

Dean put in a Blue Öyster Cult tape for the drive back to East Ebott, and “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” ended just as they drove up to the skeletons’ cabin. It was more of a log house, really, with two bedrooms and a sleeping loft for guests, a spacious living room, and what looked like a good-sized kitchen. The Winchesters brought in a bag of salt and two sawed-off shotguns loaded with salt shells; Sam took his with him into the kitchen to help Papyrus start the spaghetti, and Dean hid his in the console for the skeletons’ flat-screen TV before putting the salt bag where it would be hidden when the front door opened. Then Sans looked at the clock and saw that they still had a few minutes to kill, so Dean decided to ask him about monster music.

Sans had just played Dean a minute or so of a metal-esque song called “Megalovania” when they heard a brash female voice talking loudly outside, though the stout walls prevented them from hearing what she was saying. Dean looked out to see the fish woman—Undyne?—circling the car and talking to Frisk. Evidently, the eye patch Undyne had worn over her left eye in the Walmart picture wasn’t for show; she was wearing it now, the black striking against her bright blue scales and neon red hair and eye-shadow-like markings. She was just as tall as the pictures had made her seem, too, probably a good foot taller than Papyrus; the Impala looked almost like a go-kart next to her.

For some reason Dean couldn’t discern, Frisk turned to look in the window. And suddenly the kid’s eyes widened and turned bright red from corner to corner, accompanied by Chara’s chilling smile. Just as suddenly, the moment passed, and Frisk was left blinking at the house in confusion.

“Hey, Sans?” Dean called quietly, not taking his eyes off the kid. “I think Frisk needs some chicken soup from that diner in town—extra salty.”

“right.” There was a slight shift in the atmosphere, though without the flutter of wings with which Cas often announced his departure.

Undyne apparently ordered Frisk to stay with her, then pulled out her phone to call someone. Whoever it was seemed to be trying to reassure her, given the way she argued and gestured toward the car for a good two minutes. For his part, Dean edged toward the TV console but didn’t actually go for the shotgun.

Just as Undyne hung up with a visible huff, however, Sans reappeared, stripped off his mask and goggles, and went to the door with a Styrofoam container of soup and a plastic spoon in his hand. “hey, undyne!” he called as he opened the door. “what are you trying to do, turn the kid into a frisksicle?”

Frisk giggled.

“COME INSIDE, FRISK!” Papyrus called from the kitchen. “YOUR FACE IS NEARLY AS BLUE AS UNDYNE’S!”

Frisk giggled again and started for the door.

Undyne’s scowl eased some at hearing Papyrus’ voice, and she followed Frisk, catching the kid’s backpack as Frisk shrugged out of it. “Sans, do you have any idea—”

“lots of ’em,” Sans interrupted. “hey, kiddo. paps just started supper, but i figured you could use a snack.”

 _Thank you_ , Frisk signed and accepted the soup from him, barely waiting two steps before prying off the lid and taking a long drink straight from the bowl.

Then Frisk choked on the salty broth and started coughing hard, dislodging both Chara—who looked a lot like Frisk, aside from being clearly Caucasian—and the murder weapon, which clattered out of Frisk’s pocket. Before Undyne or Dean could react, the knife (a dagger?) was enveloped in blue light and vanished. Chara shrieked but was pulled away to wherever the dagger had gone. The blue light caught the soup before it could tumble to the floor, too, and guided it carefully to the coffee table in front of the beat-up green couch.

Dean turned to see Sans’ left eye and hand glowing with the same blue light. “Where’d you send it?” he asked.

“i don’t know and i don’t care,” Sans retorted and extinguished his magic. “what matters is that i’ve bought us some time.”

Frisk stopped coughing with a deep gasp, then cried “ _Sans!_ ” and ran sobbing to hug the skeleton.

“hey, hey, frisk,” Sans replied soothingly as he returned the hug. “it’s okay. everything’s going tibia-ll right.”

“FRISK!!” Papyrus jogged out of the kitchen just then and knelt to put his long arms around both his brother and their friend, bowing his head to touch theirs.

Sam followed but went straight to Dean. “Well?”

“Dagger,” Dean reported. “Sans disappeared it somewhere. Kid’s safe for now, though.”

“We’d better set salt lines before she comes back.”

“Right.”

“Will someone tell me what the... hockey sticks is going on here?!” Undyne demanded, finally coming in far enough to close the door.

Dean waved her over to the couch so Sam could get to the salt bag. “That ghost you just saw was Chara,” he explained quietly as she dropped Frisk’s backpack by the coffee table and sat down.

“Ch—” Undyne’s good eye widened. “ _The_ Chara?!”

Dean nodded. “She’s been using Frisk to commit murders in Ebott. We think she’s trying to provoke a hunter to come in here and wipe you guys out, or else start a war between monsters and humans. We’re here to stop her.”

Undyne frowned at him. “How can I believe you? I know who you are.”

“Look, we’ve been here since lunchtime. If we were going to shoot the place up like our Leviathan doubles did in St. Louis, you’d all be dead by now.”

“And we definitely wouldn’t have let Woshua wash the car,” Sam added as he passed on his way to the next window.

Undyne turned her frown on him. “And what are you doing?”

“Salt’s a spirit deterrent.” Sam reached the window and started pouring a line of salt along its sill. “Once we line the doors and windows with salt, the ghost won’t be able to get back in.”

“If she can even find her way back here,” Dean noted. “Ghosts can’t usually carry the object they’re tied to over long distances, hence the possession.”

“How sure are we that she’s only tied to the dagger, though?”

“good question,” replied Sans’ muffled voice, and Papyrus and Frisk finally let go of him. “got anything else she might try to use, kiddo?”

Frisk signed something Dean couldn’t make out.

Sans hummed thoughtfully. “a locket, huh? what’d you do with it?” After more signs, he echoed, “gave it to flowey. heh, well, if anyone deserves to be haunted, it’s that—”

“SANS!” Papyrus chided. “JUST BECAUSE FLOWEY CALLS YOU NAMES....”

“been called worse than ‘smiley trashbag,’ bro. but you don’t know what he got up to before frisk showed up. that flower’s a real daisy.”

Papyrus groaned, and Frisk managed a half-hearted chuckle.

“here.” Sans produced a second container of soup and presented it to Frisk. “lower sodium this time.” When Frisk hesitated, he pressed, “c’mon, don’t think i don’t see how you’re shaking. this won’t be enough to ruin your appetite, but you need something to warm your bones.”

Frisk sniffled, accepted both soup and spoon, and went to the couch to sit next to Undyne, skirting past the coffee table as if it might bite and not making eye contact with anyone, least of all Dean. Papyrus took the remaining space on the couch, and Frisk visibly relaxed.

“dean?” Sans nodded toward the kitchen, and Dean followed him into a part of the room that was out of Frisk’s line of sight. Sans made sure the stove was off, looked back to make sure Frisk couldn’t overhear, then began, “again, don’t ask how i know this.”

“This about the flower?” Dean asked, picking up a salt canister to protect the kitchen windows.

“yeah. it’s a little complicated, though. human souls, at least in our universe, are characterized by seven different traits; most people have all seven, but in varying proportions, and one usually dominates. the most important one for this discussion is _determination_. frisk has it in spades. so did chara.”

“Hm. Angela _did_ say the perp would have to be extremely determined to get past the security system in the one house.”

“the thing about determination, though, is that we’ve learned to extract it. or at least alphys has. asgore wanted her to find a way to help the monsters who were falling down, see if they could be saved or brought back somehow. so she injected ’em with determination. most of ’em... melted.”

Dean grimaced.

“asriel was already dust by then, but he’d died in asgore’s garden. when the first flower bloomed there after his death, alphys tried injecting it with determination to see if asriel could be revived that way. his consciousness did come back... but not his soul. and he had enough determination to reset the timeline.”

Dean swore under his breath as he finished the last window. Sam had returned from Hell without his soul, and it had taken Dean six months to find a way to get it back. He had no trouble imagining what someone with no soul and the power to mess with time could do.

“yeah. exactly. he swears he’s reformed now, and frisk and paps believe him, but....”

“We’re gonna have to make sure Chara’s not tied to the locket. Even if she can’t possess him, she could convince him to help her.” Dean set down the salt and picked up the shotgun Sam had left on the kitchen table. “First, though, we need to talk to Frisk.”

Sans’ smile turned threatening. “you’re not—”

“I said _talk_. I’ll put this down before I say a word. We just need it out there in case of surprises.” With that, Dean walked out and set the shotgun on a shelf near the door, then went to Frisk’s backpack. “It’s Frisk, right?” he asked the kid as he knelt next to the table. “I’m Dean. The other guy’s my brother Sam,” he added, nodding up toward the sleeping loft, where Sam was working on the last of the windows.

Frisk looked at Dean warily over the container of soup and didn’t stop eating.

“You got a notebook in here we can use?”

A slow nod.

“And a pencil, maybe, or a pen?”

Another nod.

“Awesome. Thanks.” Dean opened the backpack and kept talking as he looked for the requested materials. “See, me and my brother, we’re here to make sure Chara can’t hurt you or your friends anymore. But we need more information about what she’s up to, why she’s been killing people, what she’ll do now that we’ve forced her to leave you.”

Somehow Frisk managed to look even more troubled. Papyrus and Undyne each put an arm around the kid’s shoulders at the same time.

“Now, I understand if you don’t wanna say anything,” Dean continued, noticing Sans standing in the kitchen doorway at the edge of his peripheral vision. “See, when I was little, younger than you are, I saw something real bad. Didn’t feel like talking for a long time. So I get it, I do.” He pulled out the notebook and pencil. “You wanna write or draw or whatever, that’s cool. But you’re the best source of information we have. And whatever it is, even if you don’t think we’ll believe you... I want you to know that I will.”

Frisk looked down at the soup and took a few more hesitant bites, then took a deep breath, set down the soup, and held out a hand for the notebook.

Dean smiled and handed it over. “Thanks, Frisk.”

“YOU SEE?!” Papyrus crowed as Frisk started flipping to a blank page and the tension in the room eased. “SO MUCH UNPLEASANTNESS CAN BE AVOIDED WHEN PEOPLE TALK TO EACH OTHER AND LISTEN TO EACH OTHER! EVEN IF ONE PERSON ISN’T ACTUALLY SPEAKING! NYEH-HEH!”

“Ahhh, kid just knows it’s cool to be the strong, silent type, right?”

Frisk giggled a little. Sans, whose smile was back to looking genuine, wandered over toward the coffee table.

“How would you know, Dean?” Sam asked, climbing down from the loft. “You’ve never been cool in your entire life.”

“Excuse me? I am a Zeppelin fan. I’m cool by default.”

“REALLY?” Papyrus asked, wide-eyed, at the same time Undyne asked, “Zeppelin? Is that a wrestling move?”

“Ah, man—Frisk, haven’t you taught these guys about metal yet?” Met with another slight giggle and a head shake, Dean made an exaggerated shocked face. “Seriously? And Led Zeppelin has the perfect song for these dudes, too—‘We come from the land of the ice and snow....’”

Before Sam could even wince in jest at Dean’s butchering of “Immigrant Song,” Sans’ phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and frowned at the screen before answering. “grillby? how did you—” He broke off suddenly and nearly stopped smiling. “ _what?!_... we’ll be right there.” He hung up and turned to Dean. “she’s at grillby’s.”

“You and Undyne with me,” Dean replied as he jumped up and started for the nearer shotgun. “Sam, Paps, stay with Frisk.”

Sans snagged the shotgun with his power and sent it straight into Dean’s left hand.

Undyne was already on her feet. “How fast is your car?”

“Not fast enough. Sans?”

Sans grabbed Dean’s right hand and Undyne’s left. “i know a shortcut.”

And they were at Grillby’s.

The place was busier now, though probably not as busy as it would be later in the evening. Some of the regulars were still there—most notably the rabbit head—but one of the large tables was occupied by a group of dogs and another by the two goat-monsters... er, Asgore and Toriel. And the air was far cooler than it had been before, which might not have been so noticeable had they not appeared right in front of the bar. Dean could feel the heat of Grillby’s presence behind him, but it wasn’t doing much to dispel the malicious cold around them. That must have been the reason Grillby called.

Everyone, except for one of the dogs that was wearing a muscle shirt and camo pants, turned to stare at the new arrivals. Dean tensed.

So did Asgore. “What is the meaning of this?”

“We’ve got a problem, sire,” Undyne replied.

“You dare bring this man _here? Armed?!_ ”

Unearthly laughter suddenly began echoing through the room—a child’s laugh, but with an evil, psychotic edge that reminded Dean of the Joker. He let go of Sans in order to have both hands on the shotgun.

“What are _you_ gonna do about it, huh?” taunted a girl’s voice. “You crack me up, you really do. You’re a weak, pathetic has-been... _Mr. Dad Guy!_ ” And Chara appeared by Asgore’s chair, fritzed briefly, and reappeared.

Asgore and Toriel both gasped loudly. “Chara!”

Dean raised the shotgun, but Undyne reached across Sans and put a hand on Dean’s arm to stop him from firing. “Let’s hear this,” she stage-whispered.

“You’re only here because of Frisk,” Chara went on. “You know that, right? If I’d had my way, you’d all be dead by now. But no. Little freak went all soft and decided to _save_ everyone, just like stupid baby Asriel. Just like you! You just needed one more soul to break the Barrier, but you couldn’t go through with it!”

Asgore snarled. “Impudent child! How dare you speak so to your father?”

Chara laughed. “You’re not my father! You’re not even the king! Call yourself a boss monster? You couldn’t even save your own son!”

“But Chara, we _loved_ you!” cried Toriel.

Chara outright cackled. “Love! What is love? Weak, stupid, blind! But I’ve got the other kind—the kind that means I’m in control. _I_ killed seven humans _all on my own_... and now everyone in town knows dear little Frisk is a multiple murderer. And _I_ summoned the Winchesters here, so they know what kind of freaks have invaded their universe! You may have magic, _Dad_ , but I’m more powerful now than you can ever hope to be.”

“buddy,” Sans spoke up in a more dangerous tone than Dean had heard him use yet. “pal. you sound like you wanna _have a bad time_.”

And the jukebox played “Megalovania.”

“Oh, look,” Chara sneered. “The Dynamic Duo, Sans and Undyne. Do you really think I don’t know how to kill you?” The temperature dropped even further, causing Grillby to crackle in dismay, and every knife in the room rose into the air.

Sans stepped forward, left hand glowing, and the knives froze. A split second later, Undyne hurled a spear made of blue light toward Chara, who dodged as Asgore and Toriel flung themselves in opposite directions. The spear put a smoking hole in the floor right where Chara had stood. But the dodge broke her concentration enough that Dean could catch her with a blast of rock salt, dissipating her spectral form.

“Where’s the dagger?” he demanded.

“got it!” Sans replied, and every knife but one embedded itself in the floor.

Chara reappeared with a shriek. “No, no, no! I’ll—I’ll kill her!” She tried to grab a knife and pull it out of the floor, but even if she’d been strong enough to get it out of the wood, Sans was holding them all in place.

“Grillby!” Dean bellowed and dropped just before a jet of fire arced overhead and enveloped the dagger.

“NO! STOP! NOOOO!” Chara screamed and went up in flames as Grillby reduced the dagger to slag.

The temperature returned to normal, but a shocked silence fell over the room. Even the jukebox stopped playing. Then Sans extinguished his magic, and Undyne bent down and held a webbed hand out to Dean, who took it and pulled himself to his feet.

“Hey, nice move with the music,” Dean said to Sans. “How’d you do that?”

Sans shook his head. “wasn’t me.”

“The jukebox was broken for a long time,” Undyne explained, “but Alphys fixed it when Grillby moved out here. It detects the magical signatures in the room and plays appropriate music.”

“Oh. Awesome.” And apparently ‘appropriate music’ included the soundtrack of a human’s life, given the general reaction to Kansas earlier.

Undyne grinned. “I’ll tell her you said so. She’s my girlfriend!”

Of the other monsters, Toriel recovered first. “What... why... why did you do that?” she asked as she and Asgore got up. “Surely there was some reason Chara was behaving this way.”

“Some people just want to watch the world burn,” Dean replied.

“But we could have talked to her, helped her to change!”

“Due respect, ma’am, but it wouldn’t have worked. She’d gone vengeful. No matter how good you were in life, you don’t come back from that.”

“How do you know?”

“One of the best men I ever knew, closest thing Sam and I had to a father for a long time, died with information he knew we needed. Ducked his Reaper to try to help us, but... something happened. I dunno what. He went vengeful. Damn near killed Sam before he came to his senses. But even then he couldn’t shake the rage. He begged us to burn him before he could hurt anyone else.”

Toriel huffed, sending smoke through her nostrils. “Due respect to _you_ , Mr. Winchester, but I do not think you understand our feelings in this matter.”

“Yeah, actually, I do.”

“How can you possibly—”

“Because my daughter tried to kill me.”

Toriel’s mouth fell open in shock. “What?!”

“Long story. She was an Amazon; that was her last rite of passage. And I damn near let her do it, too. If Sam hadn’t been there to stop her—”

A strangled noise near the door drew everyone’s attention, and Dean was stunned to see Angela standing with her back against the wall, wide-eyed and nearly hyperventilating.

“Angela!” Dean put his shotgun on the bar and ran to her as Grillby reached for a bottle. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”

It took several tries for Angela to actually say anything. “I-I-I... G-Grace called and s-said you were c-c-coming up to the mine....”

“Here, c’mon, sit down.” Dean put an arm around Angela’s shoulders and gently pulled her away from the wall. “Guys, this is Angela Sullivan, Ebott’s chief of police. Chara killed her mom this morning.”

“Oh, my _dear!_ ” Toriel gasped at the same time Asgore offered a chair with, “My sincere condolences, Chief Sullivan.”

“Thank you?” Angela squeaked as Dean guided her into the chair and Grillby set a double Irish in front of her. “Y-you’re not fairies. What—who—what....”

“Perhaps explanations should wait for a better time,” Asgore answered with a kind smile. “But please, drink. I prefer tea, but this may be a case when something stronger is called for.”

Angela reached for her glass but hesitated and looked up at Dean.

Dean nodded once. “It’s safe. They’re _not_ fairies.”

Angela nodded back and tossed the whiskey back so fast, she probably didn’t even taste it.

Then Asgore turned to Dean. “It seems your reputation does you an injustice, Mr. Winchester. I owe you an apology.”

Dean sighed. “Time was, we might have done what Chara wanted. I grew up thinking anything that wasn’t human was evil, and if it was evil, it had to die. But I’ve... I’ve seen a lot since then. I know better now. Here, Chara was the real threat. You guys... you’re okay.”

“So are you,” said Undyne. “What was that you shot her with, rock salt?”

“Yeah. Works pretty well on humans, too—hurts like hell, but it won’t kill you. And hey, thanks. You, Sans, Grillby—couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Where is Frisk?” Toriel asked.

“back at the house with sam and papyrus, behind salt lines,” Sans answered. “they’re safe. speaking of, we should get back, tell paps to set another place or two for supper. you like spaghetti, chief sullivan?”

Angela blinked at him for a moment, then giggled, chortled, laughed hysterically, and started sobbing uncontrollably. Asgore sat down and put a massive paw on her shoulder in a gesture of comfort, but when Dean looked up at him, the former king was crying, too.


	6. Chapter 5: Evening and Morning

The tense stillness that had reigned for the last hour, filled only by the scratch of Frisk’s pencil on paper, was broken at last by Dean’s coded knock on the skeletons’ front door. Sam felt the room spin briefly as he finally began breathing normally again.

“That’s Dean,” he reported on his way to the door. “And... I guess Sans is with him,” he added as the salt line turned blue.

Frisk and Papyrus both heaved audible sighs of relief.

It was in fact Sans who opened the door and came in first, his magic ensuring that the salt line held despite the incoming foot traffic. Dean entered second, followed by Undyne, the lizard woman (Alphys) in a lab coat, and the female boss monster (Toriel). Toriel made a beeline for Frisk, who put the notebook on the coffee table and started crying all over again, and Papyrus vacated his spot on the couch for Alphys and walked over to the new arrivals at the same time Sam did.

“How’d it go?” Sam asked.

Dean shrugged his eyebrows. “Unless she pulled a fakeout worthy of Crowley, she’s gone. Alphys programmed Asgore’s phone as an EMF meter, and he’s gone to the Underground with some of the other sentries to check the locket Frisk gave Flowey. Oh, and....” He pulled an unfamiliar set of keys out of his pocket and handed them to Sam. “We’re gonna have to drive Angela back to town.”

“Angela?! What’s Angela doing here?”

“Providing backup, she thought. Got there just before we did. Saw the whole thing.”

“Dang. She all right?”

“As good as can be expected, honestly. But still.”

“SANS, YOU SHOULD HAVE INVITED HER OVER!” Papyrus chided.

“i did, bro,” Sans replied. “she didn’t think she could face frisk, even knowing that chara was the real killer. and spaghetti would have reminded her too much of her mom.”

“Grillby’s looking after her,” Undyne added, then punched Papyrus lightly on the shoulder. “What about you nerds?”

“FRISK HASN’T STOPPED WRITING SINCE YOU LEFT,” Papyrus replied quietly with a worried glance at the couch. “I DIDN’T KNOW THE SITUATION WAS THAT BAD.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Sam said. “None of you knew what to look for, and Chara was really good at hiding.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, “and kids who clam up like that... the worse things are, the more they shut down, especially if they’re convinced no one will believe them. Gotta know the right buttons to push to get ’em to say anything at all, even in writing.”

 _And even that doesn’t always work_ , Sam grumbled internally. A knock-down punch, a trashed motel room, taking a crowbar to the freshly rebuilt Impala... all of those were bad enough, but at least they were clues to what was going on inside Dean’s head. When Dean shut down entirely, Sam had to watch him constantly because even a split second’s inattention could be the opening he needed to disappear and do something apocalyptically stupid.

Not that Sam had much room to talk, having been the one to actually _start_ the Apocalypse. Um. Anyway.

“i dunno about you guys,” Sans interrupted, “but i’m starving. look”—he inhaled sharply, sucking his jacket and shirt tight against his bones—“you can count my ribs!”

“SANS!!!” Papyrus cried, throwing up his hands in exasperation, as Undyne cackled.

“And I thought _you_ had a black hole for a stomach as a kid,” Dean deadpanned to Sam.

“You’re just jealous _you_ can’t pull that trick,” Sam jabbed back.

“Ah, c’mon, Sammy. I’m hungry, too. Look at me; I’m skin and bone!”

“That puts you one up on Sans.”

The three on the couch were watching now, as evidenced by Alphys groaning and burying her blushing face in her hands.

“One thing I have to say for Papyrus,” said Toriel. “His cooking really _sticks to your ribs_.”

“NYEH!!!” Papyrus yelped and fled to the kitchen.

Frisk giggled helplessly.

As Sans and Undyne went to the couch, however, Dean stopped smiling and herded Sam over to the ladder for the sleeping loft. “You read anything Frisk’s written?” he asked quietly.

“No, not yet,” Sam replied at the same volume. “Why, what happened?”

“We do need to find out who Chara was calling. She told Asgore she was more powerful than he’d ever hope to be, and she said she’d _summoned_ us.”

Sam blinked. “You can’t summon a human.”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t know that, clearly. Someone musta told her she could.”

“So someone was using her as much as she was using Frisk.”

“Someone who could get this close to Sidhe territory without being challenged by them.”

Sam thought for a moment. “Y’know, there is lore that suggests the Sidhe were originally angels who didn’t take sides when Lucifer rebelled. God couldn’t let them stay in Heaven, but they hadn’t done anything worthy of punishment, so he cast them down to live on Earth until Doomsday.”

Dean frowned. “Why the hell would an angel make a deal with a sociopathic ghost?”

“I dunno. Maybe it’s a renegade like Balthazar.”

Dean grumbled a little. “Maybe Frisk can tell us.”

But Frisk declared through Sans that the story wasn’t finished yet, and Toriel insisted that everyone be quiet so Frisk could complete it before supper. So Dean went into the kitchen to help Papyrus, and Undyne dragged Sam into Papyrus’ room to talk about wrestling while Sans and Alphys went up in the loft to do... something. Fortunately, Undyne’s phone rang before she could suggest going outside to spar; Asgore was calling to report that the locket was clean and that he was going to have a long talk with Flowey that evening. And then Dean came to announce that supper was ready, which saved Sam the trouble of claiming he couldn’t spar on an empty stomach.

Sam expected Dean to make some sort of off-color remark about being alone behind closed doors with Undyne, but he didn’t. The fact that Undyne kissed Alphys on their way to the table explained why.

Supper was surprisingly good, though Papyrus confessed that Dean had made the sauce and given him the recipe. After eating, however, the fact that Sam had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours started to catch up with him, and he still had to follow Dean back to Ebott in Angela’s truck. So Frisk gave Dean the notebook and a hug, and the Winchesters took their leave, collected a barely conscious Angela from Grillby’s, and headed back to town.

Hennessy was pacing outside the door nearest the brothers’ hotel room when they arrived. “ _There_ you are!” he said as Sam got out of the truck. “Where’s Angela?”

“Asleep,” Sam replied, pointing his thumb to where she sat dozing in the passenger seat, her face illuminated by the dome light. “She’s not hurt, just exhausted and a little drunk. There’s a bar at the prepper compound, and after what happened... she needed a drink.”

Hennessy frowned. “What did happen?”

“Nothing we can’t discuss over breakfast,” Dean stated. “Short version is, the girl resisted and got herself killed. We’re damn lucky nobody else got hurt.”

“Cave-in?”

“Fire.”

Hennessy hissed.

“Yeah. Angela can tell you about it in the morning; she saw the whole thing.”

“You know where she lives, right?” Sam asked. “Why don’t you drive her home?”

Hennessy ran a hand over his face and suddenly looked as tired as Sam felt. “Yeah, yeah, that’s... that’s a good idea. Thanks, Agent.”

Sam handed over the truck keys, then followed Dean into the hotel room and set the salt lines while Dean painted angel-proofing wards on the walls with lemon juice he’d bought from Grillby. After that, though, the day caught up with Sam all at once, and he went straight to bed without even bothering to change. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

* * *

Dean slept well—suspiciously well—that night but woke early and sat down at the table to start working through Frisk’s statement. Well, it was really more of a confession, evidently meant as much for Sans’ and Toriel’s eyes as for the Winchesters’. Most of the part pertaining to events in the Underground didn’t seem particularly relevant, except to the extent that it confirmed or contradicted what Sans had said about Chara and Asriel. Frisk did reveal that the possession had begun long before the Underground’s arrival in this reality, however, and that Chara had tried to destroy the world before Frisk had summoned the strength of will (determination?) to take back control and ensure a happy ending. Asriel had absorbed every soul available to him, except for Frisk’s and Chara’s, in order to break the Barrier but had then released them all, including the human souls Asgore had harvested. Frisk had somehow sensed a Reaper coming to collect them, and since Chara had relinquished control and gone quiet as soon as they’d discovered where they were, Frisk had thought Chara had left as well. And everything had been fine and dandy for the first few months.

Then Frisk had woken out of a dead sleep just before midnight on Halloween night to find Chara in control and about to sacrifice a rabbit to any power, celestial or infernal, that cared to pay attention. Frisk had screamed and struggled, but to no avail. The pattern had repeated several times a week over the next two months, though sometimes Frisk had only woken the next morning to find the bloody dagger in plain sight, where Chara had left it with the evident intent of getting Frisk in trouble. Killing had, as Frisk put it, increased Chara’s EXP and LOVE significantly; at one point, Frisk had apparently realized that Dean wouldn’t know what those abbreviations meant and added a footnote defining them as “execution points” and “level of violence,” respectively. (That explained Chara’s comment about love, at least.) But her ad hoc sacrifices hadn’t gotten any response until the solstice—and Frisk had tried to draw the being that had shown up.

The first picture, labeled “Naomi,” wasn’t particularly helpful. Like most kids, Frisk wasn’t terribly adept at drawing facial features; the most Dean could gather was that it was a woman-shaped being in a dark suit and that her dark hair had been pulled back in a severe bun. That probably narrowed down the possibilities to angel or demon, since both favored the executive look when it suited them and a Hebrew name wasn’t likely to belong to a goddess or a fairy of the Unseelie courts. But then Dean turned the page... and found himself staring at a two-page spread of winged weirdness labeled “True Form.”

“Hey,” Sam’s sleepy voice interrupted his reverie, accompanied by the appearance of a coffee mug next to Dean’s right hand. “That Frisk’s?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied with a nod of thanks and took a drink of coffee. “It’s what answered the black cat.”

“Mm. Angel.”

Dean looked up at Sam. “You sure?”

Sam nodded, took a drink of his own coffee, and scrubbed at his eyes as he sat down. “Yeah. When I was... in the Cage, y’know, most of the time Michael and Lucifer looked like... like Nick and Adam, although Michael said once that Adam wasn’t really there. Think Cas cut him loose when he hit Michael with the holy oil Molotov.”

Dean blinked. He’d always assumed that their half-brother, who’d accepted possession by Michael to save Dean, had fallen into Lucifer’s Cage along with both archangels when Sam had dragged them in with him to end the Apocalypse. “Huh. Good to know.”

“But sometimes I’d get... glimpses. It’s really hard to explain, describe, anything. And when Michael first showed up in Stull, I saw him through Lucifer’s eyes. So yeah, I recognize an angel’s true form.” Sam took another drink and gestured toward the picture with his mug. “This one’s pretty high-ranking—a Domination, at least, maybe a Throne.”

Before Dean could ask what that meant, the room phone rang. Mrs. Hennessy had insisted the day before that law enforcement always stayed for free at her hotel, and now she was calling to inform them that breakfast was on the house, too. Never one to turn down free food, Dean accepted quickly. But while Sam stumbled off to make himself presentable, Dean turned the page and kept reading:

> _I don’t know how I was able to see Naomi’s true form; maybe it’s a side effect of being exposed to so much monster magic. But that’s the last thing I remember from that night. I don’t know what Chara and Naomi talked about, although now I think they must have made some sort of deal. At the time, I thought maybe Naomi had scared Chara off because she went quiet again through the holidays._
> 
> _But a few nights after New Year’s, she woke me up outside someone’s house in Ebott; she said she wanted to show me something. And then she broke in and killed the man. I couldn’t stop her. It was like I was tied up and gagged. It was even worse than in the Underground, because this was a human. There was blood and_ —Frisk had scribbled out several words after that and ended the sentence instead with an anticlimactic _stuff._
> 
> _When we got home and I finally got control back, I tried and tried to reset, but the menu wouldn’t come up. I thought about trying to force a Reset by killing myself, but if it didn’t work... I couldn’t do that to Mom and Dunkle Sans. And then Mom walked in and found me crying. She thought I’d had a nightmare. Chara wouldn’t let me tell her the truth._

Dean’s heart ached. Poor Frisk. The kid had made some terrible decisions in the Underground, apparently, but hell, so had Dean. And the Reset button had offered the ability to reverse those decisions, even though the damage was never completely undone. But like Dean had told Sans, it didn’t work that way in this universe. He had some idea of what it was like to be powerless against a possessing entity, although neither the specter nor the Khan worm had been totally comparable. But losing the power to fix things afterward, especially when you’d gotten as accustomed to it as Frisk had... that must be even worse.

Hell, Cas could probably relate, as often as he’d been rendered nearly human. Dean might oughta have Cas come talk to Frisk. They needed more information about Naomi anyway.

Sam came out of the bathroom at that point looking more or less awake, so Dean summarized Frisk’s confession for him on their way to breakfast. Naomi’s name didn’t ring any bells for Sam, though (“It’s not like I could read Lucifer’s mind, Dean!”), and they tabled the discussion upon reaching the hotel’s small but cheerful dining room. Nobody else was there aside from Mrs. Hennessy, so they claimed a table close to the fireplace.

No sooner had Mrs. Hennessy delivered their coffee, however, than her son walked in with Angela in tow. “Agents!” Hennessy called. “Mind if we join you?”

“Not at all,” Sam replied as the brothers stood and Dean pulled out a chair for Angela, who still looked pretty wrung out.

Angela smiled and sat down. “Thank you.”

“Boy, you guys weren’t kidding about Angela being drunk last night,” Hennessy said as he sat down next to Sam. “She told me the wildest story about what happened up there. Pretty ridiculous, though. I mean, you’re not dead serial killers who wasted a ghost in a bar full of monsters, right?”

“Of course not,” Dean lied with practiced ease and turned to Angela. “That bartender musta slipped you some absinthe when you weren’t looking.”

Angela forced a laugh. “Right, that makes much more sense.” Then her smile somehow dimmed and became more genuine at the same time. “He really was kind, though. And, uh... hot. Very... very hot, yeah.”

“Scorching,” Dean agreed with zero concern for what Hennessy might read into it. “Be careful, though. Guy like that, it’s easy to get burned.”

“Aheh. Right.”

Hennessy cleared his throat. “ _Any_ way, we’ve talked it over again and pieced together what _really_ happened. You guys can file your report with the Bureau; we’ll close out the files here and take care of the media and all. Sure is a shame the fire caused a cave-in and the girl’s remains aren’t recoverable, but hey, all the more reason for people to keep away from the mine. What’d you say her name was?”

“Chara,” Sam supplied. “Chara Dreemurr. She was trying to frame her twin, Frisk.”

“I... see. Identical twins?”

Dean shrugged. “Close enough for government work.”

Angela groaned, but her smile was brighter. Sam gave him the _I can’t believe you actually said that_ grimace.

Hennessy, on the other hand, got a calculating look in his eye. “I don’t suppose the Bureau has a file on the Dreemurrs.”

Dean shook his head. “No, these people have been so far off the grid for so many years, the government doesn’t know they exist.”

“They may not even be US citizens,” Sam added, “but there’s no way to tell. The twins were adopted, though, after they’d been abandoned. So if you want to keep the Dreemurrs out of the news....”

“Dreemurr sounds like an alias anyway,” Hennessy agreed a little too quickly. “We’ll see what we can come up with.”

“Campbell,” Dean suggested to forestall any ideas Hennessy might have of declaring the kids to be Winchesters.

Hennessy opened his mouth to object but then thought better of it. “Er, Campbell, right. Sure.”

Just then, Mrs. Hennessy delivered breakfast for four, and Dean took the break in the conversation as a chance to change the subject. “So, Angela,” he began as Mrs. Hennessy left. “You gonna take some time off?”

Angela nodded. “Yeah. After Mom’s funeral, I’m... actually, I’m going out to Sioux Falls for a while. Jody Mills invited me to stay with her for a couple of weeks.”

“Good,” said Sam before Dean could. “Jody’s a good friend. She’ll take good care of you.”

 _And explain hunting while she’s at it_ , Dean added mentally. Jody had faced down zombies and Leviathans as courageously as any hunter, and she’d helped out with a couple of other cases as well. She knew enough to be able to help Angela deal with having lost a loved one to the supernatural.

“What about you guys?” Angela asked. “Will you be on your way now that the case is closed?”

“Actually, it isn’t quite,” Sam answered. “According to Frisk, Chara had an accomplice. It’s not likely this person’s going to continue the killings, but we need to find out what was really going on to make sure the town is safe.”

Hennessy frowned. “An accomplice? Someone from town?”

Dean shook his head. “Probably not. All we have is a first name—Naomi.”

“We’re planning to talk to Frisk again later this morning,” Sam added. “We got a written statement yesterday, but with Chara gone, Frisk might be more willing to open up.”

“May not have any more information to give us, though. Sounds like Chara was doing a pretty good job of keeping Frisk in the dark.”

“We’ll still ask.”

“Oh, yeah, of course we’ll ask. Just sayin’ we may need to check other sources.”

As if on cue, footsteps approached from the direction of the dining room door, to which Dean had his back. But Sam’s eyebrows jumped in surprise, and he called “Hey!” and got up to grab a chair from another table, which meant the newcomer wasn’t Cas.

“so here you are,” replied a voice Dean hadn’t expected but probably should have. “you two are tough men to find.”

“Well, hell,” Dean returned as Sans, mask and goggles and gloves in place, walked up and clambered into the chair Sam set at their end of the table, “if we’d known you were comin’, we’da baked a pie.”

Hennessy shot Dean a strange look. “Don’t you mean cake?”

“Pie’s better,” Dean and Sans chorused, then acknowledged their agreement with a fistbump.

“How’s Frisk?” Sam asked, sitting down again.

Sans sighed. “still asleep, i think. we had a big sleepover, but nobody slept well—except alphys, maybe. paps insisted on making breakfast so tori could stay with frisk, which would have been a great idea if he didn’t use spaghetti to make pancakes. i came down here out of self-defense.”

“Why not just get takeout from Muffet’s?”

“eh, you know paps. cooking for company makes him feel better.”

Hennessy looked at Sans even more strangely than he’d looked at Dean. “Spaghetti pancakes?”

“he’s still learning how to cook, and spaghetti’s about the only thing he’s mastered. well, i say that... he’s noodled around with lasagna some, and it’s pretty good. i got him a paula deen cookbook for christmas, but tori and i are still trying to convince him to follow the recipes as written. he doesn’t always understand the terminology, and he usually asks undyne for advice, which means we’re lucky if nothing ends up on fire. frisk says we need to find a way to get food network, whatever that means, so papyrus can watch some actual cooking shows on our days off.”

Noticing Hennessy’s growing bewilderment, Angela cleared her throat. “Uh, I suppose introductions are in order. Jerry Hennessy’s one of my _most trusted_ officers,” she told Sans, who nodded once to acknowledge the implication of her emphasis. “Jerry, this is... uh....”

“oh, sorry. sans gaster. name’s classified, though.”

“He works for the Dreemurrs,” Dean added, making a mental note to ask about the surname later.

Hennessy took a deep breath and turned his attention to his plate. “This meeting never happened!”

“thanks, pal,” Sans said, sounding amused.

Sam caught Mrs. Hennessy’s attention and ordered another plate and some coffee for Sans, and the conversation turned to safe small talk for the rest of the meal. Sans kept his mask on, though, and Dean never did see how he managed to eat through it—but then again, he never had seen Sans take a bite of his food the day before, either.

As the meal wound down, however, Sans put down his fork with a sigh. “tibia-nest, agents, i didn’t just come down here to eat. there’s something i need to talk to you about—in private.”

“Likewise,” said Dean. “Our room private enough?”

“should be.”

So after taking their leave of Angela and Hennessy, the brothers took Sans back to their room. Dean noticed, however, that Sans kept scanning the walls of the hall as they walked, as if he were looking for something.

“What?” Dean asked as they stopped for Sam to unlock the door.

Sans raised his left hand and illuminated a vertical line running along the edge of the molding around the door, intersected by an irregular pattern of horizontal and diagonal lines. “what is that? it’s on all the doorframes.”

Sam stepped back to look. “ _Huh_. Looks like Ogham—Irish runes.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, that explains some things.”

Sans looked up at him. “can you read it?”

“No,” the brothers chorused.

“But I can guess,” Dean continued. “Some sort of charm, and maybe wards, too. Ensures every guest has a good night’s sleep, minimum.”

Sam raised his chin. “So the Hennessys _are_ in league with the fairies, at least in this way.”

Sans’ goggles shifted as if he were raising a brow ridge. “you’re sure that’s all it is?”

“Well, it hardly makes sense to put a curse on every room in your hotel.”

“Not only that,” Dean added as Sam finally opened the door. “I slept well last night—too well. Better than I have since before our dad died. And I hadn’t even had a beer.”

Sans flinched a little but nodded. “okay, yeah, that makes sense. it’s just... normally, when i’ve been somewhere once, i can... find a shortcut to get back, right? but i couldn’t get into your room. i managed to find your car, but it took me ten minutes or so to get into the building and find you. i actually had to use the front door.”

“Huh. Well, that might have something to do with the wards we put up last night.”

Hand still glowing, Sans cautiously approached the doorway, which began to shimmer faintly in response to his magic. “is... is that a barrier?”

“It shouldn’t keep you from walking through,” Sam replied. “It’s angel-proofing. Then again, I don’t know why it would have blocked your shortcut, unless the way you travel is the same as the way angels travel.”

Sans gulped audibly but stepped carefully across the threshold. The ward barrier wavered, causing Sans to shudder slightly, but it didn’t repel him.

“You okay, dude?” Dean asked as he entered and shut the door behind him.

Sans heaved a sigh of relief and extinguished his magic. “yeah, yeah. felt weird, but i’m all right. why angel wards?”

“Just a hunch,” Sam answered, “but it turned out to be accurate. Chara was working with an angel, according to Frisk.”

“Speaking of which, here’s what we needed to talk to you about.” Dean picked up Frisk’s notebook and handed it to Sans. “I think Frisk wants you and Toriel to read this, too.”

Sans nodded and tucked the notebook under his right arm. “thanks.”

“What was it you need from us?”

“i need your help dealing with... not a ghost, exactly. it’s my dad—or what’s left of him.”

“You mean his dust, or....”

“no, no. he’s not dead. it’s just that i’m the only one who remembers that he exists. well, frisk might have seen him a couple of times. he’s... it’s hard to explain, but he’s scattered across time and space. or at least he was until we got here.”

Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked at Dean, then at Sans, and said, “Maybe you’d better start from the beginning.”

“that’s harder than it sounds. even i don’t remember a lot. what i can tell you is that papyrus and i had a father, dr. w. d. gaster. he was the royal scientist before alphys. he was studying the nature of space-time—trying to find a way to break the barrier, i think. i really can’t tell you much. anyway, he built this machine in the core—it’s a power station in the underground, used to be a research facility—and... well, long story short, he fell into it.”

The Winchesters hissed in sympathy.

“like i said, no one else remembers him now, not even asgore. not even paps. that’s why we never use our last name; it’s not like most monsters have last names anyway. but i’ve seen him now and then, even since we arrived here, only he won’t come out of the underground. and....” Sans ran a gloved hand over his masked face. “i thought... maybe you could help me convince him that it’s safe.”

Dean frowned. “Why us and not Frisk?”

“And why now?” Sam added.

Sans hesitated, then huffed. “tibia-nest? i had a dream about dad last night, and he insisted on talking to you, said he had urgent information you needed. look, i don’t understand it, either,” he continued when Sam and Dean exchanged another odd look. “maybe he knows something about this angel chara was working with.”

Sam shrugged his eyebrows and tilted his head a little. “I guess it’s worth checking out. We need to head back up there to talk to Frisk again anyway.”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, all right. Guess we should drive, just in case.”

The drive back to East Ebott was quiet; Dean turned off the stereo to allow Sans to at least skim Frisk’s confession. As they passed Grillby’s, however, Sam asked Sans to navigate, and Sans gave them directions to the mine entrance, which was about half a mile past the edge of the monsters’ town. He had taken off his mask and goggles at some point but kept his hands in his pockets as he led the Winchesters to a spot just outside the dark, gaping doorway into the Underground.

“we’re here,” he announced as they stopped.

The shadows inside the mine entrance seemed to thicken.

Sans looked around as if searching for something to say. “uh, knock, knock.”

Dean didn’t actually hear a response, but he thought there might have been one all the same.

“scold.”

There—a barely audible rasp.

“’s cold out here, dad, but i swear, nobody’s going to hurt you. in fact, i think you’ll be more corporeal out here than you are in there.”

Something writhed in the darkness.

“just try. please. we’ll help you.”

There was a pause, and then the darkness started to seep out of the mine entrance. No, wait—that was the edge of a shapeless black robe. As it inched further into the daylight, skeletal hands with large holes in what should have been the palms appeared. Eventually, Dean could make out an egg-shaped skull with a vertical crack above the right eye socket and another below the left eye socket. Slowly, the figure—Dr. Gaster?—took one step away from the mine entrance, then another, then a third.

Sans looked ready to cry for joy. “see? i told you there was nothing to be afraid of!”

Dr. Gaster opened his mouth to reply, but what came out was unintelligibly garbled, like the sound of turning a radio dial rapidly past a bunch of stations without tuning in to any of them.

Sans didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding it, however, and his smile dimmed. “what do you mean? what were you doing?” Dr. Gaster started to answer, but Sans shook his head. “whoa, whoa, slow down, dad. what about code?”

Dr. Gaster seemed to repeat himself.

“of... of this universe?”

Dr. Gaster nodded but then swayed suddenly. Sam ran to steady him, but as he caught the skeleton, Dr. Gaster grabbed Sam’s shirt, looked him in the eye, and rasped something urgently before collapsing noisily against him, eye sockets shut.

“Whoa!” Sam exclaimed, trying to keep Dr. Gaster upright, but it was a harder fight than Dean would have expected. Apparently Dr. Gaster wasn’t completely corporeal after all, or at least not completely solid.

Sans, on the other hand, wasn’t paying much attention. His eye sockets had gone dark, and he ran a shaking hand over his face.

“What?” Dean demanded. “What’d he tell Sam?”

“you won’t like it. but it explains... a lot. a whole hell of a lot.”

“I don’t care whether we’ll like it. What’d he say?”

Sans looked up at Dean. “someone’s been tampering with the angels’ base code.”


	7. Chapter 6: Zor and Zam

“fear wasn’t what was keeping dad in the underground,” Sans explained as Dean helped Sam bundle Dr. Gaster into the Impala’s back seat. “apparently, staying where he was, right where the underground joins this universe, allowed him to study the code of the universe.”

“Code—like in a computer program?” Sam asked.

“right. he didn’t tell me much more than that, though.”

“And someone’s hacked the angels.” Dean thought for a moment. “What do you wanna bet it’s Naomi?”

“Could explain why she made a deal with Chara,” Sam agreed. “If Frisk were convicted of murder and we wiped out the monsters, we’d have had no way to contact Dr. Gaster or understand what he was saying to us.”

Sans frowned but climbed in and used his magic to shift Dr. Gaster’s head into his lap. “why go to that extreme?”

“Cas,” the brothers chorused, and Sam shut the back door.

Once they’d both gotten in the front seat, Dean started the engine and continued, “Cas has been acting weird ever since he got back from Purgatory.”

“Blanking out mid-conversation and changing his mind completely when he snaps out of it,” Sam elaborated, “doing things that were totally out of character, forgetting things he shouldn’t have....”

“If Naomi’s been messing with him, the last thing she wants is for us to find out, because she has to know we’ll do whatever it takes to free Cas. Even if it means we have to gank her.”

“gank?” Sans echoed.

“Kill,” Sam translated.

“how do you kill an angel?”

“With one of their own swords. We’ve got several, thanks to the Apocalypse.” At Sans’ silent but palpable incredulity, Sam turned to look back at him. “Look, our dad was a Marine before he became a hunter. He served in ’Nam. He raised us to ‘Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.’ You should probably consider it a compliment that we haven’t even tried to figure out how to kill _you_.”

“Oh, I think I know how,” Dean admitted, turning onto the skeletons’ street. “I just haven’t asked for confirmation, and not because I don’t think you’d tell me or think you’d try to kill me for asking.”

“That’s still better than the golem last week, and all he did was kill a Nazi necromancer. We didn’t kill him, either,” Sam added quickly, addressing Sans. “Saved him and his master, in fact. But we found out how just in case.”

Dean heard something click in the back seat and realized it was Sans blinking. “nazi... necromancers.”

“It’s called the Thule Society,” Dean explained. “And we killed those guys in self-defense. Or at least the ones who were after us.”

“We were trying to make contact with a group of rabbis called the Judah Initiative,” Sam added. “The guy with the golem was the grandson of the last surviving member, who’d just been murdered by the Thule, like, two weeks before.”

“what’s a rabbi? what’s a necromancer? what the hell are nazis?!”*

The Winchesters looked at each other, at a loss for where to begin. But before they could figure out where to start explaining, Dr. Gaster woke up enough to murmur something. Sans responded with the same type of incomprehensible noise, and the two conversed for a moment until Dean parked outside the skeletons’ house.

“what... really?!” Sans exclaimed just as Dean shut off the engine.

Dr. Gaster mumbled something else.

“why didn’t we ever hear about that?” When Dr. Gaster replied, Sans huffed. “this world is messed up.”

“No argument there,” Sam chimed in.

“Can we finish the history lesson later?” Dean asked more grumpily than he meant to. “No offense, Doc, but I don’t want to risk leaving half of you stuck to my seats.”

Dr. Gaster grumbled.

“he says that’d be unfortunate,” Sans... translated? Dean suspected he was being diplomatic. “probably uncomfortable, too. i’ll get him.”

The Winchesters got out, and Sam got the car door for Sans while Dean went ahead to get the house door. To Dean’s surprise, though, Sans didn’t have Dr. Gaster’s entire body wrapped in magic when it floated out of the back seat. Only the shape of an upside-down heart glowed blue in the elder skeleton’s chest.

“How are you...” Sam began.

“gravity magic,” Sans explained, climbing out after his dad. “apply to the soul, and the body follows. or at least that’s the way it works for us.”

Dean was in the process of opening the house door when it was wrenched out of his grasp by Undyne. “Hey, where’s— _Sans!_ ”

“clear the couch?” Sans asked.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Hey, nerds!” Undyne called, turning back toward the living room. “Clear the couch—hurt monster incoming!”

“WHAT?!” Papyrus yelped and came running. “WHO’S HURT? IS SANS—” Then he stopped short at the threshold and gasped loudly, seeing what was going on.

“Stay back or come out,” Dean growled.

Papyrus hurried out and held out his arms, and Sans settled Dr. Gaster into them before shutting off his power with a sigh of relief. Dr. Gaster rasped what might have been a question, looked up at Papyrus, said something else with a smile, and passed out again with his head on Papyrus’ shoulder.

Papyrus, on the other hand, looked at his brother, visibly disturbed. “HE KNEW ME. HE... HE SAID MY NAME... AND I UNDERSTOOD HIM. SANS, WHO IS THIS?”

“that’s our dad, paps.”

Eyes boggling, Papyrus looked down at Dr. Gaster again and cradled him more closely against his ribcage. “OUR FATHER? WHY DON’T I REMEMBER HIM?”

“it’s a long story that i’ll have to tell later. let’s get him inside.”

Papyrus nodded and carried Dr. Gaster inside, to be met with a chorus of gasps from Toriel, Alphys, and Frisk. Sans followed, as did Sam, and Dean brought up the rear. As soon as Papyrus set Dr. Gaster on the couch, Toriel rushed over and knelt in front of the couch, put one paw on Dr. Gaster’s skull and another on his sternum, and triggered a green glow around both paws. But Sans grabbed Papyrus’ hand and started dragging him toward the kitchen, shooting Dean a look and nodding toward the doorway to indicate that the Winchesters should follow. Frowning in confusion, they did so.

Sans actually shut the kitchen door this time before turning to the Winchesters. “tell us about the men of letters,” he demanded quietly.

Dean blinked. “Why?”

“when dad was explaining about the thule society, he said there was one comment that kept showing up in the code in cases of major errors: ‘alert winchester, men of letters.’ that’s why he knew to tell you about the angels. so who are the men of letters?”

“Uh, well, we are, now,” Sam replied. “We’re legacies.”

“Just found out about it a few weeks ago,” Dean added.

“Back when it was an actual organization, it was a secret society devoted to research on the supernatural. They worked with a team of elite hunters but generally didn’t deal with cases in person themselves.”

“DO YOU HAVE A LIBRARY?” Papyrus asked. “OR A COMPUTER DATABASE OR SOMETHING?”

“ _Gorgeous_ library. We’re still exploring it. We need to have a friend of ours come down and look at the computers, too; the newest ones are over fifty years old, so we don’t know what’s on them. Once we get everything catalogued, I guess, we should probably scan everything into a database just in case.”

“Yeah, but first,” said Dean, “we need to get hold of Cas, and I’m guessin’ the best place to do that ain’t here.”

Papyrus frowned. “WHY NOT? WHO IS CAS?”

“Castiel, Angel of Thursday. Another war buddy. He’s... I dunno. It’s complicated. Normally I’d trust him with my life and Sam’s, but I’m not sure I’d trust him with yours on a good day. And today ain’t a good day, if your dad’s tellin’ the truth.”

“It’s not his fault,” Sam noted.

“ _This_ time, sure. Didn’t say it was. Don’t change the fact that he’s a loose cannon. And we can’t let him put us in the same spot Martin did.”

Sam winced. Only a few weeks earlier, he’d suspected Benny of being behind a rash of killings in Louisiana and asked Martin Creaser, newly released from a long stint in a mental hospital, to look into the case. Unfortunately, Martin had made up his mind long before Dean had found out that a second vampire was trying to frame Benny, and despite Dean’s stooping to what he himself admitted was a dirty trick to try to force both Sam and Martin to drop the hunt, Martin had gone back to the diner where Benny worked and threatened his great-granddaughter. Benny had killed him in self-defense. “We don’t know what kind of time we have, though,” Sam noted.

“i know you guys have wards for keeping angels out,” Sans cut in. “what about a way to keep them in?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, we can set a trap, at least for Cas. We’ve done it before. Might keep him off Naomi’s leash while we talk to him, too. Might need your help to set it up, though.”

“what needs to be done?”

“Pour a circle of holy oil on the ground, light it up once he’s inside.”

“then how about this: we ward this house, leave paps and undyne on guard. then the three of us go into ebott and interrogate cas there.”

“BUT SANS, YOU DON’T HAVE FIRE MAGIC,” Papyrus objected.

“We have lighters,” Dean countered. “Sam?”

Sam reached for his phone. “I’ll call Hennessy, see if someone’s got a big enough garage or an empty warehouse.”

“BUT—” Papyrus tried again.

Sans cut him off with a raised hand. “paps, this is dangerous. we need you to stay here and protect dad and frisk.”

Papyrus shook his head. “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT. I THINK YOU SHOULD TAKE—”

He was interrupted again by a knock, followed by Toriel opening the door just far enough to poke her head into the room. “Forgive me for intruding, Sans dear. I believe your father is asking for you.”

“how is he?” Sans asked, going to the door.

“Stable, at least. He is no longer in danger of falling down. But I do not know how much more I will be able to heal him.”

“thanks for tryin’, sweetheart.” He took her paw and brushed his smile against the back, which was probably the closest he could come to giving a kiss. “sleep and some good food should help, too, right, bro?”

“YES, OF COURSE, BUT I THINK YOU SHOULD TAKE—”

With the door open, everyone in the kitchen could hear Dr. Gaster call again, and Sans ducked out past Toriel. Papyrus made a despairing noise and threw up his hands.

“Hold that thought, dude,” Dean said, clapping him on the shoulder blade. “I wanna hear it, but we need to find out what your dad wants first. Could be important.”

“YOU PROMISE YOU WON’T LEAVE UNTIL I’VE MADE MY SUGGESTION?”

“We still have to set the wards,” said Sam. “We’ll definitely have time to listen while we do that. Promise.”

“THANK YOU! IT REALLY IS IMPORTANT, YOU SEE.”

 _We’ll be the judge of that_ , Dean thought but didn’t say as he followed Toriel back into the living room.

Sans was standing in front of the couch in a position where he could watch both Dr. Gaster’s mouth and his hands, since the elder skeleton seemed to be trying to sign now and then. Papyrus came out of the kitchen after Dean did and went around the back of the couch to nearly the same position, frowning as he tried to make sense of what Dr. Gaster was saying. None of the other monsters in the room seemed to be able to understand Dr. Gaster, though, so at least the Winchesters weren’t the only ones out of the loop.

Frisk, however, touched Dean’s hand to get his attention. _You understand Sign Language?_

 _A little_ , Dean signed back.

 _Doctor name W. D._ Frisk paused, then finger-spelled slowly and exaggeratedly for emphasis, _W-I-N-G D-I-N-G-S!_

Dean raised both his eyebrows and his chin. That explained a lot. _Understand. Thank you._

Sans repeated a phrase back to his father in... well, in Wingdings, apparently, and then switched back to English. “you’re sure that was the exact phrasing?”

Dr. Gaster made an affirmative noise.

Sans turned to the Winchesters. “dad says it looked to him like the angels were being hacked individually from the outside, not by someone getting into the main source code. but when he was trying to find a way to undo the damage, he couldn’t make sense of the controls. and the only comment was, quote, ‘see angel tablet, section 15.’”

“There’s an angel tablet?!” Sam and Dean chorused and looked at each other.

“Well, I guess it makes sense,” Sam conceded. “I mean, there’s one for Leviathans and one for demons.”

“Probability Naomi knows about it?” Dean asked.

“Approaching 1. Could explain why she made Cas kill Samandiriel, assuming she did. If he broke under Crowley’s torture....”

“Okay, we gotta get this house warded _now_. Sans, you call Hennessy, let him know we’re coming.”

“got it,” Sans agreed and caught Sam’s phone when Sam tossed it to him.

Dean pointed to Papyrus next, startling him. “Got somethin’ that’ll stick to these walls? Chalk, spray paint....”

Papyrus looked around, wild-eyed. “UH....”

“We’ve got spray paint in the car,” Sam answered and started for the door.

But Toriel blocked the way. “No one is going anywhere until someone tells me what is going on!”

“Chara was working with an angel who would rather kill everyone in this town, monster and human, than let us find out what Dr. Gaster knows. Every second this house is unwarded increases the risk that she’s going to show up and smite us all.”

“Or force another angel to do it for her,” Dean added. “We’ve got a plan to deal with it a safe distance from here, but we need to protect you guys first.”

“AND I THINK YOU SHOULD GO WITH THEM, YOUR MAJESTY!” Papyrus declared before anyone could interrupt him yet again.

Toriel blinked in astonishment, then opened the door and got out of Sam’s way before coming closer to the couch. “Why do you think that, Papyrus?”

“BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO TRAP CASTIEL WITH BURNING HOLY OIL, AND YOU HAVE THE STRONGEST FIRE MAGIC OF ANYONE EXCEPT HIS MAJESTY AND GRILLBY.”

“May need someone to use the Mom Voice on Cas, too,” Dean added. “Think he quit responding to the Dad Voice about the third time he came back. And I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have some extra backup in case Naomi shows up.”

“Um,” Alphys piped up as Sam ran back in and tossed a can of spray paint to Dean and Sans went outside to call Hennessy. “I-I-I-I c-could... that is... w-would you... t-t-t-t-t....”

Undyne smacked her on the back.

“OW! Take a c-camera with you s-so we can see wh-what’s happening! Not so _hard_ , babe!”

“Sorry,” said Undyne and apparently meant it at least halfway. “You were stuck.”

“No dice,” Dean answered Alphys’ question while starting his half of the wards. “We’ll be lucky if either or both of ’em don’t blow out the lights, and that’s a best-case scenario.”

“Unless you’ve got a camera built to withstand an atomic bomb,” Sam added over the hiss of his own spray can, “it probably won’t hold up to the level of EMF angels can generate. Plus, if one of ’em goes true form, it could destroy the monitor on this end as well.”

“What?!” Alphys and Undyne both yelped.

“Put it this way,” Dean explained. “When Cas first tried to talk to me, he about burst my eardrums. But we couldn’t see him or talk to him, so we went to a psychic, and when she ordered him to show himself to her, he accidentally burned out her eyes.”

“She was lucky to survive,” said Sam.

Somebody gulped audibly. Dean suspected it was Alphys.

“Well,” said Toriel. “If I am to come with you into town, I must go back to my house for a cloak and some other supplies. Yes, my child, I will remember,” she added, apparently addressing Frisk. “I will return in five minutes.”

“actually, tori, meet us at the tem shop,” Sans said, and when he’d come in, Dean didn’t know. “need to get something on the way out of town.”

“I believe Frisk has anticipated your request, dear, and has offered to share that particular item so you will not have to buy one.”

“heh. smart kid. thanks, frisk.”

Dean could almost hear Frisk beam at Sans.

And suddenly inspiration struck. The next sigil was one Cas had said they’d need to break to allow him to enter a warded warehouse to rescue a fellow angel, Samandiriel, whom Crowley, the current King of Hell, had captured. As Toriel left, Dean bent down and painted the sigil at a point where Frisk could reach it, then called, “Hey, Frisk, c’mere a minute, would you?”

Frisk obediently trotted over.

“Now, don’t touch; the paint’s still wet. But when we get back—and not before—I want you to find a marker and put a big X through this sigil, okay? That way your Dunkle Sans can keep usin’ his shortcuts.”

 _Understand_ , Frisk replied with a determined look and then saluted.

Dean couldn’t help smiling as he returned the salute. “As you were, Marine.”

Frisk grinned at that.

Dr. Gaster said something, and Papyrus responded. The younger skeleton sounded distracted, though, like the sight of graffiti on his walls was bothering him. The bright orange did look pretty awful on the lodgepole pine walls, to be fair.

“There’s a hardware store in town, isn’t there, Dean?” Sam asked as if reading Dean’s mind.

“Think so. If not, there’s probably one in Salmon. You thinkin’ drywall?”

“Yeah, and maybe some added insulation while we’re at it.”

“Sure. Not like we’ve got anything urgent coming up until Kevin translates the part about how to close the gates of Hell.”

There was a shift of fabric from the direction of the couch, as if Dr. Gaster had turned his head sharply to stare at Dean. But he didn’t say anything until Papyrus spoke to him, and that response sounded curt and dismissive, like when Dad would say nothing was wrong after a bad hunt or when something reminded him of Mom. Dean didn’t turn around or say anything, but he knew they needed to come back and actually question Dr. Gaster after they’d finished with Naomi. The Leviathan tablet had left out the information that killing the alpha Leviathan would drag everyone within a ten-foot radius into Purgatory with him; it was a cinch the demon tablet would leave out similarly important information. But though Dean didn’t know much about computer code, he did know that it couldn’t be as vague as prophecy often was. If Dr. Gaster had seen the code for the switch that would close the gates of Hell, he might be able to tell them exactly what the conditions were—including the stuff that got left off the God rock.

Papyrus cleared his throat (or whatever the skeletal equivalent was). “DRYWALL, IS THAT... TO COVER UP THE SPRAY PAINT?”

“Right,” Sam replied. “Dunno if Woshua could get the paint off, but that way you’ll still be protected _and_ not have to look at the sigils. Breaking only the one sigil won’t affect the barrier against angels; we’d have to break one on each wall for that.”

“Barrier?” Undyne echoed warily.

“not that kind,” Sans stated. “they had this stuff up in their hotel room, and i walked out just fine.”

“Plus, you’ll be able to paint and such like you would in a frame house,” Dean added. “Should brighten things up.”

“OH! AWESOME!” Papyrus exclaimed.

Dean paused, then smiled to himself. He was a terrible influence, but hell, if Papyrus wanted to be cool, there were worse role models.

Conversation paused after that until the Winchesters finished the angel-proofing, which made all the monsters shiver a little as the wards took effect. Then Sans and the Winchesters took their leave and headed back out to the Impala, where Toriel, wearing a long purple cloak with a deep hood pulled forward to hide her face, was waiting with... a cardboard vest and a wall mirror?

“ah, frisk, you’re a life-saver,” Sans said, accepting the vest. “thanks, tori.”

“This is Temmie Armor,” Toriel explained as Sans swiftly took off his jacket, put the vest on, and put the jacket back on over it. “It is the most powerful armor a monster can have. I do not particularly need it, being a boss monster, but Sans is... more vulnerable.”

“not with this on,” Sans declared, zipping up his jacket.

“Frisk also suggested bringing the mirror. Few people know this, but it reflects one’s true nature. Perhaps it may be of use in confronting this Naomi.”

Dean looked at Sam, who shrugged, and said, “Yeah, sure. Let’s put it in the trunk.” He took care not to look in the mirror as he passed Toriel on the way to unlock the trunk, but when she set it on the blanket he laid out to wrap it in for transport, he accidentally caught sight of... himself.

Not a monster. Himself. The reflection’s face bore a ton more scars, but that was the only difference. He... actually wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

Toriel put a gentle paw on his back. “We should hurry.”

“Right, right, yeah.” Dean wrapped the blanket around the mirror and slammed the trunk shut.

Sans already had his mask and goggles on by the time Toriel squeezed herself into the car, and he handed Toriel Frisk’s notebook as Dean closed the door behind her. “hennessy said to meet him at the police department,” he said as Dean got in. “the sally port behind the building has a door they can close so people can’t see in.”

Dean nodded. “Perfect, thanks.”

The drive into town was uneventful, though Dean sped a little so that Toriel wouldn’t have to spend any longer hunched in the back seat to avoid gouging the headliner with her horns than necessary. He parked outside the sally port to keep the car out of the line of fire should anything go sideways. Hennessy was waiting as promised, though he looked like his coffee had already worn off, but he stared in shock as Toriel got out.

“Officer Hennessy, this is Toriel Dreemurr,” Sam said. “She’s offered to help with our interrogation.”

“Er,” said Hennessy. “Good... good morning, ma’am.”

“Officer,” Toriel returned. “And I believe you know Sans.”

“Yes, we... met this morning.”

“so this is a sally port, huh?” Sans asked, sauntering past Hennessy. “what’s it for?”

“Er, this is where we load and unload prisoners,” Hennessy replied, following as Sans had apparently intended and turning his back to the Winchesters. “It’s more secure than doing it out front at the curb. See, this door here....”

Toriel turned to accept the still-wrapped mirror from Sam, then turned away to block any immediate view into the trunk while Dean got the angel blades and the holy oil out of the arsenal beneath the trunk’s false bottom. He closed the trunk just before Hennessy turned toward them again.

“sounds like you’ve got the whole thing locked up,” Sans deadpanned as Hennessy finished his explanation and the others joined them.

Toriel chuckled.

Hennessy, however, looked startled. “Was that a pun? That... that was a pun, wasn’t it?”

“You sure you should be on duty this morning?” Sam asked.

Hennessy groaned and ran a hand over his face. “Probably not, but I promised the media one more press conference in an hour, and I can’t risk anyone getting curious while you’re back here.”

“We could go somewhere else,” Dean offered.

“No, no, there’s not really another place in town big enough and fireproof enough for what Mr. Gaster said you wanted to do. The high school gym’s got a wooden floor, and the old warehouses have all been converted to shops.” Hennessy went to a locked switch cabinet, unlocked it, and hit the switch to close the outside door, murmuring something in what sounded like Old Irish as he did so. “There. Just... make it fast, all right?” he asked as he locked the cabinet again.

“We’ll do our best... Schultz.”

Hennessy blinked at Dean for a moment before catching the _Hogan’s Heroes_ reference. “Jolly jokers,” he muttered and went back into the building.

Dean shook his head as the door closed. “Damn. Not even an ‘I see nothing.’ He _is_ tired.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure we’re not helping,” Sam agreed, looking around the space, which was about the size of a three-car garage, well lighted even in the corners, and bare of any place a prisoner could hide while trying to escape. “All right, I guess we’d better just go for it. Cas might be able to sense Sans and Toriel even if there were a place to keep out of sight.”

“We are ready,” Toriel replied, pushing back her hood.

Dean handed the holy oil to Sans, then took a few steps toward the middle of the space and closed his eyes. “Hey, Cas? It’s me. We’re at the police station in Ebott, Idaho. Need your help with a case.” After a pause, he added, “It’s about the angel tablet.”

A rush of wings heralded Cas’ arrival. “Angel tablet? What are you talking about?” His gravelly voice sounded confused, but when Dean opened his eyes, the expression on Cas’ face was one of poorly concealed fear, and he was standing several feet away as if he expected Dean to attack him.

For his part, Dean put on his best poker face. “Hello to you, too.”

“What angel tablet?”

“Is that all you’re worried about? There’ve been seven murders in this town, and you show up for a damn _tablet?_ ”

Cas started to close the distance between them. “Dean, I....”

Between one step and the next, Dean caught a second’s sight of the glimmer of oil on the concrete before a fireball landed between angel and man, sending a wall of holy fire shooting up around Cas. Cas startled backward and nearly caught the edge of his trench coat in the flames behind him.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.

“We’re sorry, Cas,” Sam said. “We know it’s not your fault. But there was no other way.”

Cas wasn’t even trying to hide his fear anymore. “What’s not my fault? Dean, what’s going on here?!”

“Who’s Naomi?” Dean asked.

Cas started blinking rapidly. “I... I don’t....”

“Yeah. You do. Even if you think you don’t.”

“Someone’s hacked the angels’ base code,” Sam explained. “We think that person knows that someone here figured it out and made a deal with a vengeful spirit to cover her tracks.”

“Who... what....” Cas looked around wildly and suddenly spotted Sans and Toriel. “What are they?” he asked Dean.

“Creatures from another universe,” Dean answered. “They’ve got some pretty unique abilities.”

“You’re working with _monsters?_ ”

“Why not? We work with you.”

Cas flinched, and his shoulders slumped. “I suppose I deserved that.”

“C’mon, man, talk to us. You dragged us halfway across the country to rescue Samandiriel. He was your friend. Then we got him away from Crowley, and you killed him. Why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. As surely as my Father lives—” Cas caught himself and sighed. “Sorry. I know that doesn’t mean much anymore.” He still wasn’t over the fact that God had ditched Heaven and left the three of them to handle the Apocalypse on their own.

“Do you even remember what you told us?” Sam asked.

“No, but... I suspect now it wasn’t the truth. Sam, you said something about coding.”

“Right.”

“I have a very vague memory of Samandiriel using that word... he said... that Crowley had gained access to our coding and learned certain secrets from it.”

“access is one thing,” Sans spoke up, walking over beside Dean. “the information we have says someone’s _tampered_ with the base code—made changes to it from the outside, added controls that weren’t originally there.”

Cas frowned as he considered the possibility and the implications. “And you think the person responsible is this... Naomi?”

“Makes a hell of a lot more sense than Crowley doin’ it,” Dean noted. “You’ve been actin’ weird since you got back from Purgatory. If you’re remembering right, there’s no way Crowley got that deep until just before we got to the warehouse.”

“It is also the best explanation for Naomi’s involvement in the murders here,” Toriel added. “Their goal was to convince Sam and Dean to consider our people a threat and slaughter us. Mere spite would not motivate a true angel to act in such a way.”

“I dunno. You never knew Zachariah. _Him_ , I killed,” he confessed to Sans.

“Zachariah wasn’t acting only on spite, though,” Sam noted. “He just got fed up with us not playing ball on the Apocalypse.”

“Yeah, good point. So what the hell is Naomi’s excuse?”

“Can’t you guess?” replied an unexpected, unfamiliar female voice.

As one, the interrogators turned to face the grey-suited brunette who looked enough like Frisk’s first drawing to probably be Naomi.

“After everything that’s happened since the Apocalypse,” she went on, “Heaven has been in a state of total chaos. That is not our Father’s will. Someone had to step in and take charge.”

“With mind control?” Dean asked.

“Angels aren’t meant to have free will. That’s what caused the problem in the first place.”

“baloney,” said Sans. “if that were true, you wouldn’t have had to change their coding.”

“And you wouldn’t have considered the deaths of one angel and seven humans an acceptable price to protect your secret,” Sam added.

Naomi scoffed. “What makes you think that was my motive?”

“This,” said Toriel, dropped the blanket, and raised the mirror.

Naomi turned to look—and recoiled when it showed, not her true form, but her vessel... with Chara’s red eyes and creepy smile. “What?!” she gasped.

“all you care about is your own power,” Sans declared. “you use your father’s will as a pretext, but you don’t actually care about his precepts. the lives of others mean nothing to you—human, monster, demon, angel. everyone’s expendable as long as you get what you want.”

“That’s what you saw in Chara, wasn’t it?” Sam continued. “She hated humans and thought monsters were weak. She’d kill whoever it took to gain the level of violence she needed to get what she wanted. You came when she called not just because you saw a means to an end, a way to keep anyone from learning what Dr. Gaster knows. You saw a kindred spirit.”

“The demon that comes when people call its name,” Dean concluded.

Naomi shook her head but couldn’t tear her eyes away from the damning image in the mirror. “No... no, I... I....”

“This is not your Father’s will,” Toriel stated sternly.

“No.” Naomi shut her eyes and shook her head again. “No, you’re right. We were made to _protect_ God’s creation. I don’t know when we forgot that.”

“you’ve got all kinds of special powers,” Sans noted. “don’t you think that means you have a responsibility to do the right thing?”

“We thought we were!”

“then why would you exploit a dirty brother killer like that?”

Naomi opened her eyes and rounded on him. “I was wrong, all right? I admit it!”

“newsflash, lady. ‘sorry’ won’t cut it, not now.”

“And you can’t just snap your fingers and undo the damage,” Dean agreed.

“Maybe not,” Naomi admitted. “But I can stop it from getting any worse. Crowley is searching for the angel tablet, but it won’t do him any good without a prophet who can interpret it. As long as Kevin Tran is safe, it’s not worth our while to continue killing to protect the tablet.”

“Where is it?” Sam asked.

Naomi shook her head. “Lucifer stole it and buried it in a crypt somewhere in the US. Crowley has a hostage who knows where it is.”

Sam looked at Dean. “We can call Garth, have him put some hunters on it.”

“Yeah, and we can move Kevin to safer quarters.” Dean somehow didn’t feel safe mentioning the bunker in front of Naomi. “What about these guys?” he added, gesturing toward Sans and Toriel.

“Dr. Gaster’s knowledge is more dangerous now to Hell than it is to Heaven,” Naomi replied. “I would offer protection, but in all honesty, the protection they already have from the Tuatha de Danaan is sufficient.” She looked past Dean to Cas. “I think Heaven’s due for some repentance and hard conversations. Castiel, I... I won’t make you come. But if you will, I promise to listen.”

“I don’t know what right I have to lecture,” Cas confessed. “But as long as I can leave when my friends need help, I’ll come. I have to make things right, or at least try.”

Toriel waved a paw and extinguished the holy fire, and the angels left without saying goodbye.

As Dean helped Toriel wrap the mirror in the blanket again, Hennessy came out of the building. “Is... is that it? Is it over?”

“As far as Ebott’s concerned, yeah,” Sam replied.

Hennessy ran a hand over his face. “That was... I mean... what do I tell the press?”

“Accomplice was wanted for espionage and is now in federal custody,” said Dean. “Or, y’know, whatever the hell you want.”

“Just remember Gibbs’ Rule #7,” Sam added. “Always be specific when you lie.”

Hennessy nodded wearily. “Espionage. Right. Thanks. This never happened.” He started to go back in, caught himself, opened the sally port, and then went inside.

Sans used his magic to pull Toriel’s hood up for her, since her hands were full. “what about as far as east ebott’s concerned?”

“Got no bone to pick with you guys,” said Dean. “But we do have a mess to clean up. Need to talk to Grillby again about Benny.”

“and dad?”

“Yeah, your dad. Like to know what else he’s got stashed inside that skull of his.”

“Well, then,” said Toriel, “we had better go and find out.”

* * *

* Given the haphazard way information from the surface made its way into the Underground and the fact that Alphys could convince Undyne, who isn’t stupid, that anime was real, it’s entirely possible that Sans’ education would not have covered human religions or World War II (if the latter even happened in the _Undertale_ universe).


	8. Chapter 7: Brothers and Friends

When the skeletons’ house came into view, Undyne was just coming outside. Dean thought he saw her counting heads as he drove up, but there was no question she was relieved by what she saw; her shoulders moved in a sigh and remained relaxed afterward. She still paced a little until Dean parked and everyone got out.

“How’d it go?” she asked then.

“They gave a war and nobody came,” Dean quipped, prompting Sam to roll his eyes.

“We persuaded Naomi of her folly,” Toriel translated before Undyne could do more than frown in confusion.

Undyne blinked. “O-oh, good. Great.”

“that reaction wasn’t fishy at all,” Sans noted dryly.

“I swear, Sans—”

“What’s going on, Undyne?” Sam interrupted before an actual fight could break out.

Undyne briefly bared her sharp yellow teeth at Sans, who was apparently still on the far side of the car and thus hidden from Dean but not from the taller monsters. But then she began, “Your dad’s fine, first of all. Papyrus wanted me to find out when it would be safe to move him away from the wards, maybe to our house or Asgore’s until the construction’s finished in the living room.”

“My house is closer still,” said Toriel. “We can move him there for the time being.”

“Should be just for the afternoon,” Dean told her. “I did this kind of job a couple times when I worked construction a few years back; it’ll go pretty fast, especially if you guys help. Probably won’t get paint on the walls today, but you guys can handle that part.”

“gerson sells paint, i think,” Sans agreed. “papyrus can decide on a color.”

“Me and Alphys got the dimensions for you,” Undyne continued, pulling a notepad out of her coat pocket. “But, uh... that’s not all we got.”

“Oh?” Dean asked, bracing himself. “What else?”

“As soon as you guys left, Dr. Gaster asked for pen and paper. But what he wrote was in these weird scribbles, so Papyrus tried to decipher it for you. He got it into normal letters eventually, but he said it still looked like some kind of computer code, so Alphys took it from there, and... she’s really, really upset, guys. So is Frisk. And I think Papyrus is, too, only he’s holding it together for them.” Undyne handed the notepad to Dean. “I haven’t looked or asked.”

As Sam came around the front of the car, Dean flipped past the first pages of dimensions and elevation drawings— _good job, Alphys_ —to where the same neat hand had copied a section of code beginning _switch(close Hell)_. He then held the pad to where Sam could read over his shoulder, although he didn’t know if the code would make any more sense to Sam than it did to him. For his own part, he skimmed down the code, noting key words like _hellhound_ , _release soul_ , _demon=cured_ , and a phrase that might be Enochian. But then he got to the end, read it twice, and then jumped to Alphys’ explanation of that part to make sure he’d understood it correctly:

> _The energy input into the quester increases incrementally, to or near the point of overload, as the cure progresses. When the demon is completely cured, the quester completes the trial as before by stating, “Kah-nuh-am-dar.” This then releases all the energy in the quester’s body, and if that kills him, the gates of Hell will close. _

Below that, Alphys had started to write something else that looked like _Please don’t_ , but a teardrop had landed on that line and blurred the ink, and she hadn’t continued.

Sam and Dean had just exchanged a look when the house door opened, and with a wail of “Dean!” Frisk came running out. Dean handed the notepad to Sam and knelt to intercept Frisk, who hugged his neck and sobbed into his shoulder.

Dean returned the hug, putting one hand behind Frisk’s head and rubbing the kid’s back with the other. “Hey there, kiddo. You don’t want us to do the trials, is that it?”

Frisk nodded.

“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay. Nothing’s set yet. Me and Sam, we gotta have a long talk first, figure out what’s goin’ on. And we’re not leavin’ until tomorrow, at least—we still gotta get those wards hidden so Papyrus don’t have to look at ’em anymore. Hey, did you break that one for Sans?”

Frisk nodded.

“All right. Thanks. Look, I can’t make any promises about what we’ll decide. But....” Dean had to fight the lump in his throat for a moment as sudden memories of Ben, the boy who might have been his son, flooded back unbidden. When he could speak again, he continued, “It means a lot that you care.”

A beep close by was followed shortly by Sam saying, “Hey, Garth, it’s Sam Winchester. ... Yeah, it’s—it’s going well. Listen, tell Kevin to take a break on the tablet for a while, would you? ... We, uh... it’s kind of a long story, but we just found out there’s an angel tablet, too, plus we got some new information about the trials from somebody up here. ... No, he’s not another prophet. It’s complicated. ... Who? Meta—Meta _tron_? No, but there’s a robot called Mettaton we haven’t met yet. ... Y—like I said, it’s complicated. We’ll call you back later and tell you all about it. Just tell Kevin to get some sleep and eat some real food for a change. Maybe take him to Branson for a couple days. ... Yeah, all right. Thanks, dude.” He hung up and blew the air out of his cheeks. “Garth says hey,” he told Dean.

“Who’s Garth?” Undyne asked.

“A friend, fellow hunter. Nice guy. Actually, Papyrus kinda reminds me of him.”

“Except Garth’s probably a better cook,” Dean deadpanned, which got a giggle out of Frisk. “You gonna be okay now, Frisk?”

Frisk sniffled and nodded.

“Okay. We gotta go back to town and get what we need at the hardware store before it snows again, but we’ll be back by lunchtime. Though how the... heck we’re gonna fit everything into the car....”

“now, there i can help you,” Sans spoke up. “frisk, you brought one of the dimensional boxes out of the underground with you, right?”

Frisk sniffled again, apparently thinking, then got very excited and backed away from Dean far enough to sign. _Yes, yes! Is great—like TARDIS!_

Dean blinked. “You mean it’s bigger on the inside?”

Sam snorted and tried to cover with a cough.

Frisk ignored him and nodded. _Holds all kinds of stuff. Way more than I could carry through Underground._

“it is limited to ten items,” Sans noted, “but you can probably get away with bundling the lumber and drywall so each bundle becomes one ‘item.’ there’s no size limit.”

“Ten....” Dean shook his head. “Y’know what, I’m not even gonna ask.”

“I need to take the mirror home anyway,” said Toriel, “so I shall do that and return with the dimensional box. Where in your room is it, my child?”

Dean missed Frisk’s answer because he got up to open the trunk for Toriel.

“Ah, that box! I had wondered why you kept it. Well, then, will you come with me to take out whatever may be in it?” At Frisk’s apparent agreement, Toriel continued, “Go in and get your coat, then, and ask Papyrus whether he wants to move Dr. Gaster now or after lunch.”

“Actually, we might be late for lunch,” Sam said in a slightly distracted tone, and Dean looked up from the trunk to see him checking his phone. “Local hardware store won’t have what we’ll need, according to Walsh. We’ll have to go to the lumberyard in Salmon.”

Dean checked his watch. “It’s a quarter to 10 now; figure an hour each way, maybe half hour each at lumberyard and hardware store... better eat there, then, and plan to be back between 1 and 2.”

“Will the dimensional box work over that distance?” Toriel asked Sans.

Sans shrugged. “don’t see why not. it’s not like the undernet, which runs on magic. in fact, that might let us get things unloaded and ready while you guys are on your way back. frisk, didn’t alphys do something to your phone that let you connect to the boxes that way?”

When Frisk nodded, Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay, I’m _really_ not gonna ask.”

“Uh, hey,” Undyne interrupted, “you guys keep your weapons in your car, right? Mind showing me what you’ve got while you’re here?”

“No, sure,” Dean replied, as much out of professional courtesy as anything.

Sam ushered Undyne over while Dean opened the arsenal, and the ensuing conversation about what everything was and did almost drew Dean’s attention away from Frisk running inside and Sans following, Frisk coming back out and leaving with Toriel, and Toriel returning with the dimensional box. He suspected that was Undyne’s intent, but he decided not to call her on it; it was at least something to do while they waited.

“Here we are!” Toriel called cheerfully as she walked up with the box. “Frisk has promised to check the box inventory at noon, and assuming it does work, we shall have everything prepared for you when you return.”

Dean nodded and closed the arsenal. “Awesome. Thanks.”

Toriel set the box in the trunk; it was bigger than it looked. “Frisk is preparing my couch for Dr. Gaster, and I think I should go and supervise. Undyne, will you help Papyrus move him when we are ready?”

“Sure thing,” Undyne replied. “See you guys later.” Then she went back in the house, and Toriel left.

Dean closed the trunk and leaned against it for a moment. “I swear these guys came out of some sort of video game.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Sam replied. “I mean, there’s at least one universe out there where our lives are a TV show.”

“Don’t remind me, Padaleski.”

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean’s deliberate mangling of his alter ego’s name, which was exactly the reaction Dean had been aiming for.

“All right, let’s go.” Dean knocked on the trunk and straightened, and the brothers got in the car and left.

But for some reason, Dean didn’t feel like turning on the radio, and silence fell over the car, heavy with the implications of Dr. Gaster’s information. Neither brother said anything until they were well on the far side of Ebott.

“You looked in the mirror, didn’t you?” Sam finally asked.

“Yeah,” Dean admitted. “Didn’t mean to. Just happened.”

“What’d you see?”

Dean sighed. “A grunt who’s too dumb to stay out of a battle.”

“Dean.”

“What do you want me to say, Sam? You’re the brains of the outfit. You always have been. You want out; I want to give you a way out. That’s the only happy ending I’ll ever have. Just... don’t say anything when we get back, huh? Don’t wanna break Frisk’s heart.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“No, you’re not doing the trials.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell not lettin’ you kill yourself for the greater good again.”

“And you expect me to sit back and let _you_ commit suicide?”

“Dude, you were _just fine_ while I was in Purgatory. You can go back to Amelia, have everything you ever wanted.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s married.”

Dean nearly swerved off the road. “She’s WHAT?!”

“He was missing in action—”

“You had an _affair?!_ ”

“She thought he was dead! He came back, like, a week before you did—that’s why I went to the cabin and ran into you there. Like I told you, it was over.” Sam paused. “Truth is... I’m still not sure it ever actually happened in the first place.”

“Why not?”

“Because _you weren’t there!_ ”

Stunned, Dean blinked several times before he found his voice again. “What? But—I thought—”

“Yes, whatever Cas did to shift the Hell trauma got me back on my feet enough that I stopped hallucinating Lucifer. But I’d still spent most of a year not knowing whether _anything_ I was seeing or hearing or... or touching was real. You don’t just get over not being able to trust your senses, not when you’ve built up a habit for that long. I mean, yeah, I still had the scar I could press on, but that didn’t always work, especially right toward the end, when I couldn’t shut Lucifer up. But you know what I could always rely on, no matter what? YOU. You told me to trust you were real, and... and when you weren’t reacting to what I saw, or... or heard or anything, I knew _it_ wasn’t real. The thing with Riot, yeah, that happened. I know because you smelled dog in the car when you got back. But you never met Amelia. You weren’t there to tell me we were moving too fast or... or call me an idiot for getting involved with her or yell at me because I was making the whole thing up—I—I don’t... you weren’t _there_ ,” Sam ended plaintively.

Dean sighed heavily. “Hell, Sammy, I’m sorry.”

“I should have looked for you. If I’d been thinking straight, I probably would have. I’m tired of letting you down. But Dean, I _can’t_ have a happy ending without you in it.”

“I thought you were doing better.”

“I am. Doesn’t mean I’ll _stay_ better.” Sam paused. “In fact—”

“No! Do not say I’d be better off without you, Sam. I know I’ve said stupid stuff lately, especially about Benny, but there is _nothing_ that I would _ever_ put in front of you, understand? Ever.”

“Not even Mom?”

“Not even Mom,” Dean confirmed without hesitation.

Sam sounded about two years old when he replied, “Okay.”

“I mean it. Don’t make me lock you up in Bobby’s old panic room.”

“I thought it blew up with the house.”

“I’ll find a way to bring it back.”

Sam laughed, and the tension in the air eased a bit. “Okay. But that still doesn’t mean I think you should do it.”

“But we can’t ask—”

“Then we don’t. We let Garth make the call.”

“Garth?!”

“Dean, he’s stepped into the void Bobby left. He’s got way more contacts than we do. He can find a volunteer, someone who doesn’t have a family. We can provide research support... you know, like the Men of Letters used to do.”

Dean shot Sam a sidelong look.

“Besides, I think we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of what Dr. Gaster knows. The monsters accept us, but they probably wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

That was a fair point, and Dean knew it. He took a deep breath and let it out again. “Okay.”

“You—you agree?”

“Yeah. Still don’t like sendin’ someone else on a suicide mission, but you’re right. Sans wouldn’t let anyone else near his dad.”

Sam blew the air out of his cheeks. “Okay. Great.” And he pulled out his phone to call Garth.

* * *

A slow minute passed between the Winchesters leaving their car to go into the lumberyard and Sans materializing in the back seat. He’d waited that long to make sure they wouldn’t come back and catch him. Once he’d arrived, however, he sat still for another long moment with his eye sockets closed, recovering from the longest jump he’d ever made. He knew he’d make it home just fine, as long as he rested a bit first.

When he felt somewhat recharged, he opened his eye sockets again and looked around. So this was Salmon, eh? Cool. Now he could come back if he needed to, get a car for Paps so they could run more errands away from Mt. Ebott. A red Ferrari, if he could find one, or maybe a Porche 911. Maybe a Corvette. Maybe a Mustang.

Maybe.

If he didn’t decide to do something else first.

After another moment, he slid forward off the seat, turned around, and reached under to retrieve his right hand and the cell phone it was holding. He hadn’t been certain his impromptu bug, using the phone’s voice recorder to capture sound waves and the hand to relay the vibrations back to the rest of him, would work over this distance; maybe the dimensional box’s link to the Underground had helped. But work it had. Sans had been distracted briefly by Toriel asking him on Frisk’s behalf to take the bloodstained sweater Chara had stashed in the box and turn it over to the Ebott police. Fortunately, though, he’d gotten back before the Winchesters had started talking, and excusing himself for a nap had allowed him to ‘hear’ their entire conversation, the subsequent call to Garth (who really did sound like Papyrus personality-wise), and the smattering of small talk that had followed before Dean had found a classic rock station to listen to. As fascinating as the new-to-him music had been, however, Sans had spent the rest of the hour digesting what he’d heard.

Garth hadn’t been sure he could find a volunteer. Sans wasn’t sure whether it would be best if someone else accomplished the trials before any of the humans could try it themselves.

After reattaching his hand and turning off the voice recorder, Sans sat down again and let himself absorb what he could from the car while he rested. This thing, almost alive— _Baby_ , she’d called herself when he’d jumped into her before breakfast—was brimful of smells and emotions and flashes of memory. Leather and oil, gunpowder and beer, whiskey and cheap food, salt and silver. Blood and tears, sweat and... things humans did that Papyrus didn’t need to know about, and neither did Sans, holy cow. Laughter and anger. Joy and sorrow. And love—always love.

It smelled like home.

He couldn’t say he didn’t have the same thing with Papyrus. He did, and now Frisk and Toriel were part of it, too. He’d even managed to get his dad back. He just didn’t know, with all the ways he’d failed and all the lives he hadn’t saved, whether he deserved it.

A soft click interrupted his reverie, followed by a quiet female voice singing from the stereo: “Don’t sleep in the subway, darling, / Don’t stand in the pouring rain....”

Sans blinked. “baby? is that you?”

“Don’t sleep in the subway, darling, / The night is long, forget your foolish pride....”

“o-kay, if you’re gonna start reading my mind, i’m outta here.” And before Baby could object, he teleported back to his room, then shook his head in bewilderment. Foolish pride? What was that supposed to mean?

“DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, SANS.”

If Sans had had skin, he might have jumped out of it before whirling to see Papyrus leaning against the inside of his bedroom door, looking at him sadly. “what—i mean—what are you—”

“THE TRIALS TO CLOSE THE GATES OF HELL. YOU WANT TO DO THEM, DON’T YOU?”

Sans managed a laugh. “whatever gave you that idea, bro?”

“YOU DIDN’T USE THE VOICE RECORDER.” Papyrus held up his own phone. “YOU CALLED ME.”

“wh-wh-what?”

“YOU REALLY SCARED ALPHYS YESTERDAY WHEN YOU ASKED HER TO HELP YOU TEST WHETHER YOU COULD USE THE PHONE WITH YOUR HAND DETACHED. SO SHE REPROGRAMMED IT WHEN YOU WEREN’T LOOKING. YOU’D JUST COME IN HERE WHEN YOU TAPPED THE RECORD BUTTON, SO... WHEN I PICKED UP AND HEARD ROAD NOISE, I JUST LISTENED.”

“heard the whole thing, huh?”

“YES, I DID. I KNOW I SHOULD HAVE HUNG UP, BUT....” Papyrus hesitated a moment, then slid his phone into his pocket and came over to sit down on the bed. “YOU’RE A REAL PUZZLE, YOU KNOW THAT, BROTHER? I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING IMPORTANT YOU WEREN’T TELLING ME, SOME REASON YOU KEEP HAVING NIGHTMARES. I THOUGHT YOU’D SEEN SOMETHING SCARY AND DIDN’T WANT ME TO KNOW.”

Sans rubbed the back of his cervical vertebrae. “kind of an understatement there, paps.”

“I REALIZE THAT NOW. I... I READ WHAT FRISK WROTE YESTERDAY. WELL, MOST OF IT, ANYWAY, ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE UNDERGROUND.”

Sans bit back a curse.

“AND NOW, HEARING WHAT THE WINCHESTERS SAID TO EACH OTHER... YOU SAW ME DIE, DIDN’T YOU? YOU **REMEMBER.** ”

Sans let his eye lights go out. “heh. you always were good at solving puzzles.”

“SANS, DID IT EVER OCCUR TO YOU THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN JUST AS BAD THE OTHER WAY AROUND?”

“huh? what are you talking about?”

“IF THEY’D KILLED YOU INSTEAD OF ME. IF **I** HAD HAD TO WATCH **YOU** DIE.”

“but... but it didn’t happen that way. ever. not once.”

“NOT THEN, NO.”

“paps....”

“YOU WOULDN’T SURVIVE, BROTHER. NO MONSTER COULD, NOT EVEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS. THOSE TRIALS ARE MEANT TO REACH THE LIMITS OF A **HUMAN** SOUL; A MONSTER SOUL WOULDN’T BE STRONG ENOUGH TO SURVIVE EVEN ONE TRIAL, LET ALONE THREE. BESIDES, YOU HEARD WHAT THE TASKS ARE. KILLING A HELLHOUND? GOING TO HELL AND BACK? CURING A DEMON?”

“we could find a way,” Sans stated, but he didn’t sound convincing even to himself. “it would benefit us as much as humans to have hell closed. chara could never get frisk again, for one thing. and... i mean... you wouldn’t have to deal with my mess and my debts and my laziness and....”

Tears pooled beneath Papyrus’ eye sockets as he slipped off the bed to kneel in front of Sans. “SANS, I DON’T WANT YOU TO FALL DOWN!”

Something in Sans’ ribcage squeezed, as if his soul were being dragged down with blue magic. “paps, you’ve got frisk. you’ve got undyne and alphys. you’ve got _dad_ back now.”

“BUT THEY’RE NOT YOU.” Papyrus was really crying now. “YES, I WISH YOU WEREN’T SO MESSY AND LAZY, BUT YOU’RE MY BROTHER AND FRISK’S DUNKLE AND... THERE’S JUST NOBODY ELSE LIKE YOU. AND DARN IT, IF SOMEONE AS COOL AS DEAN CAN SAY THINGS LIKE THAT TO HIS BROTHER, SO CAN I!”

Sans wasn’t sure whether the sound he made was more laugh or sob; his smile broadened even as his own eye sockets started pouring tears. “aw, geez. who am i to contradict the great papyrus?”

“THAT’S RIGHT!”

“i’m sorry, bro.” Sans stepped forward and hugged Papyrus. “i didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“YOU DIDN’T, REALLY. YOU JUST SCARED ME.” But the way Sans’ ribs creaked from the strength of the hug Papyrus was giving him proclaimed that either understatement or lie. “I MEAN—NYEH-HEH—OF ALL THE TIMES FOR YOU TO DECIDE TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING FOR ONCE....”

“well, then, i hereby resolve to be a lazybones the rest of my life so i can go on annoying my brother until we’re both too old and stove up to do anything.”

That got a laugh, and Papyrus finally eased up.

“i wasn’t lying, though. it really would be better for us if hell’s gates were closed. even naomi said dad’s knowledge is a threat to hell.”

“I KNOW. BUT SAM HAD A GOOD IDEA.”

Sans blinked and pulled back. “you don’t mean—”

“I THINK WE SHOULD JOIN THE MEN OF LETTERS!”

“i don’t think they take monsters, bro.”

“BUT IF IT’S ONLY SAM AND DEAN, THEY WOULDN’T MIND, WOULD THEY?”

“huh. guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

“YAY!” Papyrus hugged Sans again. “YOU REALLY ARE THE BEST, SANS!”

Sans hugged Papyrus back and decided he did need to find Paps a sports car after all.


	9. Epilogue: The Perfect Blendship

“No weapons, and no magic,” Sam stipulated as Asgore shushed the crowd that had gathered at the East Ebott Park early Sunday afternoon.

“No holds barred,” Undyne countered.

“IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE A FRIENDLY MATCH, UNDYNE!” Papyrus, who was serving as referee, objected.

“I’ll keep it friendly! I just want to show off!”

Sam coughed. “Actually, that might level the playing field a bit.”

Undyne laughed. “Sure, ’cause you’ll need every advantage to fight me!”

“ALL RIGHT,” said Papyrus. “THREE FALLS OR TWENTY POINTS. READY?”

Sam took a deep breath, wiped his hands on his thighs, and offered one to Undyne, who grinned ferociously and shook hands with more force than necessary. Dean, sitting on a bench on the sidelines, winced.

“ANNND... GO!”

The crowd roared as Undyne lunged at Sam, who ducked and caught her in the midriff with his shoulder. She in turn caught the tail of his jacket, but he twisted out of it, stumbling as he did so. Again she grabbed for him, and again he just barely dodged out of the way. His movements seemed graceless and gawky, and most of the monsters jeered and hooted as he slipped on the snow and had to roll quickly before Undyne could pounce on him.

Dean chose the insults he shouted very carefully. He knew exactly what Sam was up to.

The temperature next to Dean suddenly rose, announcing Grillby’s approach. But Dean was surprised to hear a quiet, deep voice like the soft roar of a stirred fire call his name.

“Hey, Grillby,” Dean replied, looking up at the restaurateur.

“Your friend,” Grillby said. “Tell him to come.”

“Okay. Thanks. He’ll be driving an old grey and white pickup with a shell on the back. About my height, blue eyes, got some grey in his beard. Probably wearing a blue hat and coat.”

Grillby nodded. “We’ll watch for him.”

“Thanks, man. Seriously.”

Grillby nodded again and walked away.

Dean glanced back out at the wrestling match just in time to see Sam pull Undyne off balance but not take her down for more than a second. Then Dean slid his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed a number he’d intended never to call again.

Benny answered on the first ring. “Dean!” Dean could almost hear the relieved smile in his whiskey-rough Louisiana drawl. “Hey, brother!”

“Hey, Benny,” Dean replied, smiling in spite of himself. “How you been?”

“Oh, y’know. I get by.”

“Where are you?”

“Uh, Pittsburgh.”

“You workin’?”

“No, why?”

“Got a job for you.”

“A—a _job?_ ”

“Yeah, restaurant. Guy said he could use someone with experience. And it’s so far off the grid, it ain’t even funny.”

Benny started his truck. “Man, that’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

“Wait, wait, Benny, lemme give you the directions first. You got a map?”

“Yeah, hold on.” Dean heard a slight noise that might have been the glove compartment opening and closing, followed by the rustle of paper. “Awright, shoot.”

“You’re headed to Ebott, Idaho. It’s near Salmon, eastern part of the state.”

Benny muttered under his breath for a moment. “Found it.”

“Which direction you comin’ into town?”

“Nnnorth.”

“Okay. Come straight into town on 93. When you get to Mine Road, turn left.”

More muttering that sounded like it was around a pen cap. “Writin’ this on my hand,” Benny confessed after a moment. “Left on Mine Road. G’won.”

“Keep goin’ straight past the edge of town and up the mountain. You won’t be able to see this place until you’re almost on top of it.”

A pause, and Benny sounded a little suspicious when he said, “Awright.”

“When you pass a sign that says ‘Welcome to East Ebott,’ slow down but keep drivin’. You’re almost there.”

“O-kay. ‘Welcome... to _East_ Ebott.’ Next.”

“You’re lookin’ for Grillby’s Bar and Grill. It’ll be about another half mile on that same road, on the left side of the street. Won’t be any cars around, so you can park anywhere.”

“Grillby’s Bar an’ Grill. Got it.”

“And if a bathtub called Woshua asks to wash your truck, let him.”

Benny snorted and started folding up the map. “Right.”

“Listen, Benny... there’s somethin’ I gotta tell you about this place.”

“Shoot.”

“The owner, Grillby?”

“What about ’im?” The glove compartment opened and closed.

“He’s a fire elemental.”

Three, two, one.... “He’s what?”

“You heard me.”

“Come on.”

“Straight stuff. Whole town full o’ monsters. But it ain’t like Purgatory, dude. They don’t eat people. From what I hear, the food’s made with magic, absorbs straight into the bloodstream, no matter the species.”

“Wait, so... so you think I... I might could....”

“Eat like a human. Yeah.”

There was a _ka-chunk_ as Benny put his truck in gear. “I hope so. Dear Lord, I hope so.”

Dean blinked. “You okay, man?”

“No, not really.” Road noise picked up in the background. “Got enough blood bags to get me there, but... I ain’t gonn’ lie to you, Dean. Been thinkin’ ’bout Purgatory a whole hell of a lot. Not enough to do anythin’ stupid,” Benny added before Dean could ask. “It ain’t been easy, but I’m keepin’ my nose clean, like I promised. But I don’t fit anymore. Not with humans, and sure as hell not with vampires.”

“I hear you, dude. But this bunch... hell, some of ’em are better’n most humans I’ve known,” Dean admitted, shooting a smile at Sans, who’d just sat down beside him. “I think you’ll fit here.”

Benny sighed. “Well, even if I don’t... it’s worth a try. Thanks, brother.”

“Take care, Benny.” Dean hung up just as Undyne threw Sam headlong into a snowbank. “Now watch this,” he told Sans. “Five, four, three, two, one....”

And Undyne, who had run up to pin Sam, found herself flying backward as he vaulted out of the snow, kicking her in the solar plexus with both feet. He landed on her chest and held her down while Papyrus counted two, then let her up and bobbed and weaved with far more grace than before while she stumbled after him. When she got close enough for him to grab her arm and get one leg behind hers, he pulled her down with a judo throw and pinned her again. She pulled his legs out from under him when he let her up, but he hooked his feet under her armpits and flung her into the same snowdrift she’d thrown him into, then sat on her back and pinned her a third time.

“SAM WINS! SAM WINS!” Papyrus crowed over the varied reactions of the crowd. “WOWIE, THAT WAS AMAZING!”

Dean whooped. “YEAH! Way to go, Sammy!”

Sam stepped back, and Undyne got up, spluttering. “No fair!” she yelled. “I had eighteen points!”

“That was totally fair,” Sam countered. “You’re the one who said no holds barred. Besides, you’re cold-blooded; I just wanted to give you a chance to warm up.”

“yeah,” Sans chimed in. “pretty _ice_ of him, huh?”

Undyne threw a snowball at Sans. It missed. Laughing, Dean pulled two bottles of water out of the snow next to their bench and tossed them to Sam, who handed one to Undyne; she grimaced and accepted it. Then Mettaton, who really was glam metal personified, rushed out of the crowd with microphone in hand and camera-cat in tow to interview the contestants, and Undyne threatened to turn him into scrap if he asked her any stupid questions.

“so how long until we can paint?” Sans asked Dean.

“As cold as it is,” Dean replied, “better let the joint compound set one more day before you try to sand it. If it smears, let it cure another day or two. Once the mud’s dry enough to sand, though, use primer first and then paint after that dries.”

“gotcha. you planning to stay until benny gets here?”

Dean shook his head. “Nah, better not. Sam still wants to kill him.” Ignoring Sans’ odd look, he added, “Besides, it’s gonna take him a couple of days, even driving straight through, and if we stay too much longer, Hennessy’s liable to break down and tell his folks we’re hunters and not FBI.”

“yeah, no sense in wearing out your welcome. if you guys ever come back, though, there’ll be pillows in the loft with your names on ’em. literally, if i know papyrus.”

Dean chuckled. “You guys are always welcome at our place, too. Just call first to make sure we’re there. Kevin’s kinda jumpy; you drop in unannounced, he might shoot you.”

“what, won’t he already know we’re coming?”

“Kid’s a prophet, not a psychic. ’Course, that’s probably a good thing—otherwise, whenever he ran off, we’d have a small medium at large.”

Sans cracked up.

“Speaking of which, has your dad spilled anything else we need to know about?”

“nah, not yet. but we’ll call if he does.”

“Awesome. Thanks. But y’know, don’t feel like you need an excuse to come visit. You wanna use the library or, hell, even just come over for pizza and movies, that’s fine.”

“we might do that. thanks.”

“When you... take a shortcut, can you use coordinates?”

“not if i’ve never been there before. if your car’s there, that might not matter. but tibia-nest, i have no idea whether i can jump that far. planning to get paps a car for his birthday, though, so if it has gps, we can use that.”

“All right, here.” Dean pulled one of his fake FBI business cards out of his jacket pocket and wrote the bunker’s coordinates on the back. “GPS’ll probably conk out on you about a mile out, but when it does, call and we’ll give you directions.”

Sans nodded, accepted the card, and tucked it into one of his own pockets.

Mettaton turned to interview Papyrus, which quickly turned to mutual gushing, and Sam made his escape. “How was that?” he asked as he walked up to the bench.

“You coulda caught her with a right hook,” Dean deadpanned.

“nice job baiting her, though,” Sans added.

“Indeed so,” said Toriel, bringing Frisk over to join them. “It seems she fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

“You are all horrible,” Sam declared.

Frisk giggled, and the adults laughed.

“Thank you for agreeing to spar with Undyne,” Toriel told Sam. “It may not seem like it now, but I believe that has cemented her respect for you, even more so than your kindness to Papyrus, Alphys, and Frisk.”

“Hey, no problem,” Sam replied and accepted his jacket from Alphys, who had retrieved it for him. “I’m just glad nothing got bruised but her pride.”

“That’ll heal by the t-time we s-see you again,” Alphys stated with a bashful smile. “Wh-when will that b-be, by the way?”

“Can’t make any promises,” Dean answered as he stood. “But we’ll keep in touch. Got people here who care about us,” he added, looking at Frisk.

Frisk smiled and nodded emphatically.

Papyrus rushed over at that point. “ARE YOU GUYS LEAVING ALREADY?”

“Yeah, ’fraid so, dude. Wanna try to make it up to Whitefish before dark.”

“OH. WELL, DRIVE SAFELY, AND FEEL FREE TO CALL ME ANYTIME YOU WANT TO! THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO CHAT WITH FRIENDS! NYEH-HEH-HEH-HEH!”

“Same to you, man,” said Sam, and after a round of shaking hands/paws and trading one-handed _I love you_ signs with Frisk, the brothers headed back to the Impala.

“Kinda hate to leave,” Dean confessed as they got in.

“Know what you mean,” Sam agreed. “You did give Sans the bunker coordinates?”

“Yeah, and told him to call ahead. But he said they’d probably drive.”

“Good idea. No sense risking a teleport accident like what happened with Henry. We don’t want Kevin to wake up and discover there’s skeletons in his closet.”

Dean looked at Sam. Sam grinned at Dean. Dean slugged Sam’s shoulder, laughed, and started the engine.


End file.
